Poster1 - 09: SURGERY CLERKSHIP STUDENTS DO NOT PREFER ORAL EXAM STUDY AID IN “APP” FORM: THEY FAVOR IN PERSON INSTRUCTION
Rishindra M Reddy, MD, Karla Robinson, BS, Chris Chapman, BS, Chandhu Vemuri, MD, Jonathon Finks, MD; University of Michigan

Introduction: Phone “Apps” are being developed as novel and potentially transformatve educational material and delivery systems.  Institutionally, we have struggled to help our surgery clerkship students prepare for their surgery oral exam.  We created an oral exam app to supplement other materials and hypothesized that there would be a high rate of utilization and satisfaction.

Methods: A phone app was created to provide outline materials for 11 oral exam topics used at the end of a 6 week surgery clerkship.  Students were provided access to an online pdf with the same material and had weekly oral exam preparation sessions with faculty in a large group format.  A survey assessing for oral exam preparation and app usage was sent out to 124 students from 4 rotations utilizing a 5 point likert scale. A qualitative analysis of comments was made to identify themes to improve oral exam education.

Results: 78 students completed the survey for a 62.9% response rate. 55 students (70.5%) felt that the preparation offered was “adequate” or “very adequate”.   While 19 students downloaded the app, only 9 (11%) of students used the phone app regularly, compared to 77 (99%) using the pdf and 69 (88.5%) using faculty led practice sessions to prepare for the exam.  Only 8/19 (42%) of students felt the app was “useful” or “very useful”, with all using them for individual study (10) or study with another student (1).  Concerns raised about using the app included: “perception of being on my phone by other team members and negatively impacting my grade” and “variability in quality of content on the app”.  What asked about how to improve the educational experience, the top two themes were “more small group sessions with faculty on the individual rotations” and “Video of an example of an oral exam at the start of the rotation”.

Conclusions: Utilization of a phone app for oral exam help is poor.  Students favor the pdf form of educational materials and want more small group oral exam practice.  Perhaps distribution of the app to faculty could aid in more surgeon led practice.