Abstract
Purpose :
Pterygium surgery is one of the most common surgeries performed by ophthalmologists worldwide. The purpose of this study was to introduce and validate an assessment tool (rubric) for the evaluation of ophthalmology residents’ competency in pterygium surgery.
Methods :
A panel of 7 international experts collaborated and developed the rubric. Detailed description of each stage of pterygium surgery was presented and the Dreyfus scale of skill acquisition was used for scoring competency. Two experts evaluated 20 masked pterygium surgery videos of 10 residents and scored the videos independently according to the rubric. The agreement between the scores of the experts was examined with intra-class correlation coefficient test. The effect of residents’ prior experience in pterygium surgery on their competency score was also investigated.
Results :
The rubric divides pterygium surgery into 13 different stages and covers the two most common techniques: conjunctival autograft and amniotic membrane transplant. The rubric showed face and content validity. Overall, an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.897 (95% confidence interval 0.759-0.958 p-value < 0.001) was achieved between the two experts. Residents who were later in their rotation scored significantly higher compared to those performing their initial surgeries (3.55 ± 0.5 p-value < 0.05). Some stages of pterygium surgery showed a more significant improvement in competency score with increased resident experience.
Conclusions :
This study introduces an international rubric for the assessment of competency in pterygium surgery. This rubric may be used to standardize the teaching and assessment of pterygium surgery in training programs.
This abstract was presented at the 2019 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Vancouver, Canada, April 28 - May 2, 2019.