Developing reliable surgery-specific entrustable professional activities (SSEPA) for the fourth year of medical school

To standardize preparation for residency, the AAMC created 13 generalized Entrustable Professional Activities (EPA). To improve student preparedness for surgical residency, we developed surgery-specific EPAs by comparing attending surgeon and resident opinions regarding what EPAs should be addressed during the fourth year of medical school.

A focus group of attending surgeons developed 29 surgery-specific EPAs based on the AAMC’s core EPAs. We then surveyed attending surgeons and current surgery residents. Data were collected using the Chen Scale for determining activity entrustability and then evaluated for agreement and discordance.

Of those queried, 12 of 12 (100%) attending surgeons and 42 of 106 (40%) residents completed the survey. Those surveyed agreed that of the proposed EPAs 18 were entrustable, 6 were not, and there was discordance for 5 of the EPAs.

Specialty-specific EPAs demonstrate the potential to bridge performance gaps between medical school and residency.