Comparison of faculty versus structured peer-feedback for acquisitions of basic and intermediate-level surgical skills

Purpose

Video feedback and faculty feedback has been shown to improve surgical performance; however, consistent access to faculty is challenging. We studied the utility of structured peer-feedback (PF) compared to faculty-feedback (FF) during acquisition of basic and intermediate surgical skills.

Methodology

Two randomized non-inferiority trials were conducted with 1st (n?=?30) and 2nd year (n?=?29) medical students learning skin-lesion excision and closure (S), and single-layer hand-sewn bowel anastomosis (B), respectively. Five attempts were performed. PF participants used an Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills tool to guide feedback. Blinded raters assessed video-recorded performance, time and Integrity of the completed task were also assessed.

Results

For both tasks performance by PF was comparable to FF (P?=?0.111). Both groups improved significantly: performance (B:P?

Conclusion

Structured peer-feedback is equivalent to faculty-feedback in the acquisition of basic and intermediate surgical skills, giving students freedom to practice independently.