The goal of this study was the identification of attributes of general surgery residents that are associated with passing the CE at the first attempt.
The modified Delphi process was used to survey general surgery program directors. The study was conducted in 2 rounds in the interest of time available for surgical education research fellowship project.
All 259 program directors were contacted in each round of surveys. In all, 49 (19%) responded to the first round and 54 (21%) responded to the second round of survey.
The characteristics of a successful resident on CE include confidence, self-motivation, sound knowledge base, strong performance on the Board’s training examination (American Board of Surgery In-Training Examination), and mock orals, and good communication skills. Postgraduate years 4 and 5 are the most likely resident levels at which failure could be predicted.