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Session: ePoster: Education, Training Assessment, and Practice Management 1 (Sun8)

EP284 - Resident Perception of How to Create an Environment of Inquiry on a Colorectal Surgery Service

Sunday, May 11, 2025
9:22 AM – 9:27 AM PT
Location: Monitor 5, Sails Pavilion, Upper Level

    ePoster Presenter(s)

  • Hanna E. Labiner, MD

    Housestaff
    Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
    Somerset, New Jersey, United States

    All of the relevant financial relationships listed below have been mitigated.
    This individual has no financial relationships with ineligible companies.

    • Author(s)

  • Kristen Donohue, MD, FACS, FASCRS

    Assistant Professor of Surgery
    Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
    Atlantic Highlands, NJ, United States

    All of the relevant financial relationships listed below have been mitigated.
    This individual has no financial relationships with ineligible companies.

    • Senior Author(s)

  • NM

    Nell Maloney Patel, MD

    Vice Chair of Education
    Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
    Westfield, New Jersey, United States

    All of the relevant financial relationships listed below have been mitigated.
    This individual has no relevant relationships with ineligible companies.

All of the relevant financial relationships listed below have been mitigated.
Hanna E. Labiner, MD: This individual has no financial relationships with ineligible companies.
Kristen Donohue, MD, FACS, FASCRS: This individual has no financial relationships with ineligible companies.
Nell Maloney Patel, MD: This individual has no relevant relationships with ineligible companies.
Image or Table (Do Not add text here):

Purpose/Background: The ACGME requires residency programs promote an “environment of inquiry”, but what this phrase means is open to interpretation. This can create a discrepancy between how teaching faculty and residents define an environment of inquiry, and residents may not recognize or take full advantage of the interventions put in place for their benefit. We aimed to determine what aspects residents most associated with the environment of inquiry on our colorectal surgery (CRS) service, which is routinely noted by our residents to be one of the best services at complying with this ACGME requirement.

Methods/Interventions: General surgery residents at a single large academic medical center who had rotated on the CRS service between 2022-2024 were surveyed regarding what they felt contributed to the environment of inquiry. Students t-tests were used to analyze responses by clinical PGY cohort.

Results/Outcomes: 20 residents responded to the survey, a 67% response rate. 100% of respondents felt that there was an environment of inquiry on the CRS rotation. When asked what was necessary to create an environment of inquiry, only 40% thought the opportunity to participate in research contributed. 75% of residents listed education about evidence-based practices as a necessary factor, but only 45% and 35% respectively felt that a weekly journal club and weekly multidisciplinary tumor boards were effective means of teaching evidence-based medicine, despite 65% saying the content was moderately or extremely relevant to the clinical scenarios encountered on the rotation. The most important factor residents noted for creating an environment of inquiry was a supportive learning environment in which they could ask questions or offer alternative diagnostic and therapeutic strategies without fear of judgement (95%) (Table 1). Clinical post-graduate year did not affect which factors residents felt most impacted the environment of inquiry (p=0.31).

Conclusion/Discussion: Formal educational activities such as dedicated journal clubs, research groups, and multidisciplinary conferences to discuss evidence-based medicine are often considered by surgical educators to be the mainstay of an environment of inquiry. Residents, however, feel that having a supportive, nonjudgemental environment in which they can ask questions is the most important factor. Services that experience poor compliance with the ACGME environment of inquiry requirement may benefit from working with attendings to help them create a more supportive learning environment.