S/he who can, does and teaches. S/he who cannot, doesn't

Abstract

Background: The saying, "[h]e who can, does. He who cannot, teaches." suggests that those who have the skills to perform do so, whereas those who do not have those skills become teachers. We hypothesize that this saying as it relates to general surgery residents is not true.

Methods: This was a retrospective study of general surgery chief residents from 2009 to 2013. Technical ability was assessed with the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery examination performance. Teaching ability was assessed with medical student evaluations on a 9-point Likert scale as well as with receipt of teaching awards: The Arnold P. Gold Teaching Award, the surgical teaching award given by each graduating class of the medical school, and resident induction into Alpha Omega Alpha. Mann-Whitney U tests were performed between resident groups based on teaching award status and Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery examination outcomes, using an α = 0.05.

Results: For 32 chief residents (7 female), the median score on the Manual Skills Section was 531 (interquartile range [IQR] [478-563]). On the Cognitive Section, the cohort of residents who won each award outperformed the residents who did not win that specific award (all p < 0.05). On the Manual Skills Section, residents who received any teaching award/the Arnold P. Gold Teaching Award (n = 7) performed similar to residents who did not receive this award (n = 25) (584 [IQR {491-620}] vs. 527 [IQR {482-537}]) (p = 0.09). Residents who received the surgical teaching award from the medical school (n = 3) performed similar to residents who did not receive this award (n = 29) (608 [IQR {474-637}] vs. 527 [IQR {482-555}]) (p = 0.23). Eligible residents who were inducted into Alpha Omega Alpha (n = 4) outperformed residents who were not inducted (n = 18) (596 [IQR {564-637}] vs. 527 [IQR {446-551}]) (p = 0.01).

Conclusions: There is some evidence that superior resident teachers have greater content knowledge and a higher degree of laparoscopic skills.

Keywords: Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery; Interpersonal and Communication Skills; Medical Knowledge; Practice-Based Learning and Improvement; Professionalism; general surgery; medical students; residents; teaching; technical skills.