Can Success in the Surgical Residency Be Predicted from Preresidency Evaluation?

Abstract

Sixty-two residents entered the general surgical residency over a 10-year period, and 42 completed it. When the 20 who were dismissed from the program were compared by discriminant analysis to those who completed it successfully, it was found that Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) membership, high class rank, clinical honors, and publications predicted success with 89% accuracy. Ten of the 42 who completed the program were rated as outstanding, 22 were average and 10 below average. No subjective or objective preresidency selection data correlated with later chief resident performance.

The Electronic Residency Application Service Application Can Predict Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Competency-Based Surgical Resident Performance

“…Most of these studies were performed in the pre-ACGME competency era. 1,2,4,5 Even some more recent studies have chosen non-ACGME core competency measures as their endpoint of performance. For example, Dirschl et al 5 found that academic performance in clinical clerkships most strongly predicted resident success based on in-training examination scores and faculty ranking of cognitive, affective, psychomotor, and overall traits of the resident.…”

“…AOA achievement has previously been shown to be predictive of success in residencies. 1,2 In fact, AOA status has been shown to predict postresidency achievements as well. 3 In the present study, while AOA was shown to be predictive of overall success on univariate analysis, this significance was lost on multivariable analysis.…”

“…Historically, the decision-making process has been based on the applicant's grades, United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 score, Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) membership, letters of recommendation, and faculty interviews. A few studies, which involve different medical and surgical specialties, have examined whether these factors can predict which applicants will be deemed "good" residents during their subsequent postgraduate training [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] and which applications will have future success as academic surgeons. 3 However, results have been varied, and to date, little data are available as to whether high marks on these variables correlate with subsequent performance on the 6 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) competencies.…”

Importance of the Faculty Interview During the Resident Application Process

“…3 Although little to no correlation between formal written examinations and clinical performance has uniformly been observed, significant correlations between previous medical school honors or election to AOA, high class rank, and number of research publications have been linked to the faculty assessment of resident knowledge, whereas others have failed to find any of these to be useful predictors of subsequent success. [4][5][6][7][8] Interestingly, assessment of personality traits such as "stress tolerance" has even been suggested to predict technical operative skill. 9 By closely examining the resident selection process for our general surgical program, we sought to determine whether this process was at all predictive of the quality of residents selected.…”

Wie werden Berufsanfänger in der Chirurgie ausgewählt? Ergebnisse einer Umfrage unter deutschen Chefärzten*

“…Diese erweisen sich meist als weitgehend wertlos [10,12,32], denn sie sind, anders als Zeugnisse, aus Gefälligkeit erstellt und spiegeln nur selten eine objektive Beurteilung des Kandidaten wider. Das Risiko bei der Wahl eines Berufsanfängers ist allerdings gering, denn spätestens nach 18 Monaten kann man sich gegebenenfalls von dem ungeeigneten Mitarbeiter trennen oder, wenn er sich in der Zeit als AiP ± im Sinne einer verlängerten Probezeit ± als guter Mitar- Wohl häufig überschätzt werden von den Anwärtern Empfehlungsschreiben.…”