Doty John R, Nguyen Michael, Snyder Richard J, McCann Ulysse G, Doty Donald B
Division of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery, Intermountain Heart Institute, Intermountain Healthcare, Murray, Utah.
Planning and Insights, Marketing and Communications, Intermountain Healthcare, Salt Lake City, Utah.
JTCVS Open. 2021 Jul 16;7:274-285. doi: 10.1016/j.xjon.2021.07.003. eCollection 2021 Sep.
The Core Curriculum Review Course in Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery is a 4-day educational program consisting of 77 didactic lectures that provide a comprehensive review of the material required for surgeons preparing for the American Board of Thoracic Surgery competency written examination. The lectures are supplemented with a written syllabus and interactive audience participation system. We sought to determine whether participation in this course could improve participants' performance on a cardiothoracic subject-based test.
Sixty-five participants attended the 2018 course. Before beginning the course lectures, a multiple-choice pretest consisting of 77 questions was administered via mobile application to gauge the participants' baseline knowledge. A second multiple-choice posttest was made available beginning 7 weeks after the course, also by mobile application.
Twenty-nine participants completed both the pretest and the posttest. The median pretest score was 47% (36 of 77 correct answers). The median posttest score was 61% (47 of 77 correct answers), representing an increase of 14%. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test indicated a significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores ( = -4.36; = .00). Overall, 25 participants (86%) improved their posttest score.
The core curriculum review course was successful in improving participants' performance on the course tests, indicating that the participants' fund of knowledge was likely increased by attendance at the program. Additional strategies should be considered to address particular areas of study both for individual participants and for residents currently in training.
心血管和胸外科核心课程复习课程是一个为期4天的教育项目，包含77场理论讲座，为准备美国胸外科委员会资格笔试的外科医生提供全面的材料复习。讲座配有书面教学大纲和互动式听众参与系统。我们试图确定参加该课程是否能提高参与者在心胸外科主题测试中的表现。
65名参与者参加了2018年的课程。在课程讲座开始前，通过移动应用程序进行了一项由77道题组成的多项选择题预测试，以评估参与者的基础知识。课程结束7周后，同样通过移动应用程序进行了第二次多项选择题后测试。
29名参与者完成了预测试和后测试。预测试的中位数分数为47%（77道题中答对36道）。后测试的中位数分数为61%（77道题中答对47道），提高了14%。威尔科克森符号秩检验表明预测试和后测试分数之间存在显著差异（Z = -4.36；P = .00）。总体而言，25名参与者（86%）提高了他们的后测试分数。
核心课程复习课程成功提高了参与者在课程测试中的表现，表明参加该项目可能增加了参与者的知识储备。应考虑采取其他策略，以针对个体参与者和目前正在接受培训的住院医生的特定学习领域。
