Development and Preliminary Evaluation of a Transition-to-Residency Curriculum for Surgical Residents

This study aimed to systematically construct a transitional curriculum for newly recruited surgical residents and to evaluate its preliminary application outcomes through pre and postimplementation assessments, so as to provide practical references for the design and dissemination of such curricula.

A singlecenter historical controlled design was adopted. Residents admitted in 2020 served as the traditional teaching group (preimplementation), while those admitted in 2024 served as the teaching reform group (postimplementation). Both groups completed selfadministered surveys three months after admission. Following Kern's sixstep approach, the transitional curriculum for surgical residents was developed based on needs assessment results, comprising 18 theoretical lectures and 3 practical skill training sessions, all delivered within the first three months after admission. Selfadministered questionnaires were used to assess clinical readiness and teaching satisfaction in both groups at three months postadmission. Betweengroup comparisons were performed using independent samples ttests, with Cohen's d effect sizes calculated, along with sensitivity analyses and power analyses.

The teaching reform group (n=33) demonstrated higher scores across all dimensions of clinical readiness and teaching satisfaction compared with the traditional teaching group (n= 22), although none of the differences reached statistical significance(all P > 0.05). Overall clinical readiness improved from 6.82±2.13 to 7.15±1.37 (mean difference 0.33, 95% CI: -0.61 to 1.28); satisfaction with teaching work increased from 7.45±1.71 to 7.88±1.65 (mean difference 0.43, 95% CI: -0.50 to 1.35); and satisfaction with faculty instruction rose from 7.95±1.76 to 8.61±1.52 (mean difference 0.66, 95% CI: -0.24 to 1.55). Power analysis indicated that the current sample size could detect a minimum betweengroup difference of approximately 1.32 points in teaching satisfaction, whereas the observed difference (0.43) was below this threshold.

The transitional curriculum developed in this study provides a systematized framework of theoretical instruction and foundational skills training for newly admitted surgical residents, and its feasibility has been preliminarily validated. Its effectiveness, however, warrants further confirmation through largersample, prospective studies with objective outcome measures.