Development of a new valid and reliable microsurgical skill assessment scale for ophthalmology residents

BACKGROUND: More and more concerns have been arisen about the ability of new medical graduates to meet the demands of today’s practice environment. In this study, we wanted to develop a valid, reliable and standardized assessment tool for evaluating the basic microsurgical skills of residents in a microsurgery laboratory, to get them well prepared before entering the surgical realm of ophthalmology. METHODS: Twenty-three experts who have teaching experience reviewed the assessment scale. Constructive comments were incorporated to ensure face and content validity. Twenty-one attendings from different specialties then graded eight corneal rupture suturing videos with the scale to investigate interrater reliability. Fourteen of them graded the same videos 3 months later to investigate intrarater reliability (repeatability). RESULTS: A total of 280 assessment scales were completed. All the ICC values of interrater reliability were greater than 0.8 with 75% data greater than 0.9 (range 0.860–0.976). All the ICC values of intrarater reliability (repeatability) were also greater than 0.8 with 63% data greater than 0.9 (range 0.833–0.954). CONCLUSIONS: The assessment scale we developed is valid and reliable. This tool could be useful to ensure that junior residents achieve a certain level of microsurgical technique in a laboratory environment before training in the operation room. Hopefully, this tool will provide a structured template for other residency programs to assess their residents for basic microsurgical skills.