Innovation in Pediatric Surgical Education for General Surgery Residents: A Mobile Web Resource

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: General surgery residents lack a standardized educational experience in pediatric surgery. We hypothesized that the development of a mobile educational interface would provide general surgery residents broader access to pediatric surgical education materials. METHODS: We created an educational mobile website for general surgery residents rotating on pediatric surgery, which included a curriculum, multimedia resources, the Operative Performance Rating Scale (OPRS), and Twitter functionality. Residents were instructed to consult the curriculum. Residents and faculty posted media using the Twitter hashtag, #UCLAPedSurg, and following each surgical procedure reviewed performance via the OPRS. Site visits, Twitter posts, and OPRS submissions were quantified from September 2013 to July 2014. RESULTS: The pediatric surgery mobile website received 257 hits; 108 to the homepage, 107 to multimedia, 28 to the syllabus, and 19 to the OPRS. All eligible residents accessed the content. The Twitter hashtag, #UCLAPedSurg, was assigned to 20 posts; the overall audience reach was 85 individuals. Participants in the mobile OPRS included 11 general surgery residents and 4 pediatric surgery faculty. CONCLUSION: Pediatric surgical education resources and operative performance evaluations are effectively administered to general surgery residents via a structured mobile platform. ((C) 2015 Association of Program Directors in Surgery. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)