The Plastic Surgery In-service Training Examination: An In-depth Reference Analysis.

UNLABELLED

The goal of this study was to characterize the references provided as supporting evidence of the Plastic Surgery In-service Training Examination (PSITE) syllabi, including those on the novel "core surgical principles" section.

METHODS

We analyzed the references from five consecutive PSITE Examination syllabi (2016-2020). We collected the following information from each question: question section, total number of references, and source of publication of each reference.

RESULTS

We analyzed 1250 questions and 3436 references. was overall the most frequently referenced journal followed by ) and The most commonly referenced textbooks were (by Neligan), and Regarding the "core surgical principles" section, remained the most frequently cited journal, followed by the and . "Core surgical principles" contained the largest number of unique journals (n = 209) among all test sections. Within the "core" section, was the most frequently referenced textbook followed by

CONCLUSIONS

The main plastic surgery texts and literature were used to support approximately half of the answers within the "core surgical principles" section. The references within this section originated from the largest number of different journals, thus highlighting the breadth and variety of this content and the challenges in preparing for this section.