Abstract
Purpose :
To determine the current state of virtual eye surgery (VES) training in United States (US) ophthalmic graduate medical education (GME).
Methods :
An anonymous survey consisting of multiple-choice and Likert-style questions was sent via e-mail and mailed letter (with survey link and a $1 incentive) to 114/116 US ophthalmology residency Program Directors (PDs) [excluded two PDs consulted during the survey design]. Non-responders received one reminder email and one phone call. To determine if there was non-response bias based on program size, the results were weighted to reflect the distribution of ophthalmic GME programs.
Results :
The response rate was 45% (51/114). The majority of respondents (73%, 37/51) indicated that their program used a VES simulator for resident surgery training. Simulator training sessions were required for first-year trainees in 87% (27/31) of programs, second-year trainees in 77% (24/31), and third-year trainees in 39% (12/31). In VES sessions, supervising faculty were present some or all of the time in 32% (10/31) and 3% (1/31) and of programs, respectively. Common outcomes to gauge trainee VES performance included numerical score (66%, 23/35), length of time to complete modules (40%, 14/35), and subjective attending assessment (20%, 7/35). Other components of VES surgical training curricula included wet laboratories (100%, 34/34), didactics (91%, 31/34), and mental skills training (26%, 9/34). Important barriers to simulator use at programs were cost (79%, 11/14) and lack of simulator realism (14%, 2/14). Most respondents agreed that VES simulators were useful in improving trainee surgical skills (82%, 40/49) and proficiency in live surgery (71%, 35/49); however, only 32% (16/49) of respondents agreed that VES should be required in ophthalmic GME (32%, 16/49). Weighted and unweighted results were similar and differed at most by 3%.
Conclusions :
Results suggest that VES simulators are widely used in US ophthalmic GME, although there was variation in degree of attending supervision, timing of required VES sessions in residency training, and outcomes used to assess trainee VES performance. There was no consensus on requiring VES simulator training in ophthalmic GME.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.