Assessment of learning competencies the general surgery in medical students trained virtually during COVID-19

Abstract

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the medical career adopted the virtual modality for teaching. The General Surgery Department of the Central University of Ecuador (CG-UCE) implemented this strategy and subsequently evaluated the mastery of clinical and surgical competencies in rotating interns and graduates trained in that period. An analytical and cross-sectional study was conducted with a voluntary sample of students from the period 2022-2023, who signed informed consent and were evaluated in a simulation clinic using a rubric for acute appendicitis, the main cause of acute surgical abdomen in Ecuador. The performance of 49 participants was analysed by direct observation in a simulated environment, using Atlas ti software. Competency assessment in the September cohort averaged 17.25/20 points, noting that these students were completing their pre-professional internships, suggesting that temporality influenced the results. The assessment placed the students in the last two levels of Miller's pyramid, which showed the need to strengthen specific competences within the curriculum to overcome training deficiencies derived from the pandemic.