Faculty Bibliography

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States Surgeon General advised all hospitals and ambulatory care centers to delay nonurgent medical procedures and surgeries. This recommendation, echoed by a multigastroenterology society guideline, led to the suspension of colonoscopies for colorectal cancer (CRC) screening and surveillance. Although this temporary suspension was necessary to contain COVID-19 infections, we as gastroenterologists, patient advocates, and CRC researchers have witnessed the downstream impact of COVID-19 and this recommendation on CRC screening, research, and advocacy. These effects are particularly noticeable in medically underserved communities where CRC morbidity and mortality are highest. COVID-19 related pauses in medical care, as well as shifts in resource allocation and workforce deployment, threaten decades worth of work to improve CRC disparities in medically underserved populations. In this perspective, we present the unique challenges COVID-19 poses to health equity in CRC prevention and provide potential solutions as we navigate these uncharted waters.

Background: Te Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has identifed six core competencies in which trainees are expected to demonstrate profciency. Milestones have been developed to provide a framework for evaluating trainee performance within these competencies. We used an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) focused on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) to assess the milestones in gastroenterology (GI) fellows. METHODS: Ten second-year fellows from six GI fellowship programs participated in a four case OSCE. In the "Transition of CareTM case the fellow was to assess a patient's readiness on the planned transition from child-centered to adult-centered care. In the "Shared Decision MakingTM case the fellow was to evaluate a patient with Crohn's disease who would beneft from combination therapy. In the "ER FlareTM case the fellow was to triage and suggest management of a flaring ulcerative colitis patient. In the "IBS in IBDTM case the fellow was asked to discuss irritable bowel syndrome in the context of quiescent IBD. Previously validated OSCE checklists were used to assess the GI fellows' performance using a 3-and 5-point behaviorally-anchored Likert Scale. Checklists were scored by the standardized patient. Checklist items were mapped to appropriate ACGME milestones by a GI medical educator. Scores within each milestone were normalized on a scale from 0-9 as utilized by the ACGME in the Next Accreditation System milestone initiative. Fellows were provided feedback on their performance. RESULTS: Te majority of fellows scored between 6 and 9 in the milestones assessing patient care (PC), medical knowledge (MK), interpersonal and communication skills (ICS), professionalism (Prof), and systems-based practice (SBP). Composite average scores for all participants were as follows: PC1 7. 7, PC2 6. 9, MK1 6. 9, MK2 7. 0, ICS1 7. 4, Prof1 7. 6, Prof3 6. 9, and SBP4 6. 4. Fellows scored highest in the "Shared Decision MakingTM case and scored lowest in the "Transitions of CareTM case. CONCLUSION(S): In this OSCE GI fellows performed well in the majority of milestones evaluated, however areas of less optimal performance were identifed, providing areas for future focus in fellow training. Te OSCE is a well-validated standardized tool for evaluating trainees, and with appropriate mapping of checklists to ACGME milestones, it can serve as an objective method to assess GI fellows' progress in the core competencies

BACKGROUND: Experiential learning in medical education, as exemplified by objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs), is a well-validated approach for improving trainee performance. Furthermore, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has identified OSCEs as an ideal method for assessing the core competency of interpersonal and communication skills. Here, we describe a novel educational tool, the inflammatory bowel disease OSCE (IBD OSCE), to assess and improve this clinical skill set in Gastroenterology fellows. METHODS: We developed a 4-station IBD OSCE that assessed shared decision making, physician-physician communication, and physician-patient consultative skills specifically related to the care of patients with IBD. Each station was videotaped and observed live by faculty gastroenterologists. Behaviorally anchored checklists were scored independently by a faculty observer and the standardized patient/physician, who both provided feedback to the fellow immediately after each case. Post-OSCE, fellows attended a debriefing session on patient communication and were surveyed to assess their perspective on the examination's educational value. RESULTS: Twelve second-year gastroenterology fellows from 5 fellowship programs participated in the IBD OSCE. Fellows performed well in all measured domains and rated the experience highly for its educational value. Fellows cited IBD as an area of relative deficiency in their education compared with other knowledge areas within gastroenterology. CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge, this is the first OSCE designed specifically for the evaluation of skills as they relate to IBD management. Using OSCEs for IBD education provides an opportunity to robustly assess core competencies and the role of the physician as an educator.