Original articleClinical endoscopyDo breaks in gastroenterology fellow endoscopy training result in a decrement in competency in colonoscopy?
Section snippets
Methods
Data on the maximal colonoscopic insertion that was independently reached by the gastroenterology fellows at our institution was collected prospectively from July 2010 until March 2012 for quality assurance. We then retrospectively analyzed the data for this study. Inclusion criteria included colonoscopies in which a fellow participated. Exclusion criteria included colonoscopies performed when the intended extent was distal to the cecum (such as sigmoidoscopies or purposefully truncated
Results
During the study period, there were 6485 colonoscopies performed by 24 gastroenterology fellows with 87 breaks in training. Breaks occurred throughout the 3-year fellowship program. Figure 3 illustrates the distribution of when the breaks occurred. The median length of a break was 6 weeks (range 2 to 36 weeks). Seventy-five percent of the breaks were 8 weeks or less in length. During nonendoscopy rotations, the fellows completed on average 0.5 colonoscopies per week (interquartile range 0.0,
Discussion
To our knowledge, there have not been any studies describing the variations in schedules among fellowship programs for teaching endoscopy. Anecdotally, we are aware of some fellowship programs that teach endoscopy longitudinally with a half day or day of endoscopy per week, whereas others, like our program, teach endoscopy in blocks. Some programs also have longer research blocks in the second and/or third year. In our program, this research block can be from 4 weeks to 9 months depending on
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DISCLOSURE: The authors disclosed no financial relationships relevant to this publication. This study was funded by the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Quality in Endoscopy Research Award.
If you would like to chat with an author of this article, you may contact Dr Jorgensen at [email protected].