Alexandra Rosser

University of Wisconsin–Madison | UW · Department of Surgery

Objective: To determine differences in Entrustable Professional Activity (EPA) assessments between male and female general surgery residents. Summary background data: Evaluations play a critical role in career advancement for physicians. However, female physicians in training receive lower evaluations and underrate their own performance. Compete...

Background This pilot study examined intraoperative instructional techniques during “takeovers,” defined as the act of an attending taking control of a case from a resident. This work describes what happens during takeovers and identifies possible reasons for takeovers. Methods Intraoperative audio-video recordings during 25 laparoscopic inguinal...

Background Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) are a new tool for assessing learners that represents a significant movement in graduate medical education (GME) towards competency based assessment and serves as a bridge between milestones and clinical practice. Whenever a major change is implemented to any system, resistance to change is expe...

Background Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) contain narrative ‘entrustment roadmaps’ designed to describe specific behaviors associated with different entrustment levels. However, these roadmaps were created using expert committee consensus, with little data available for guidance. Analysis of actual EPA assessment narrative comments usin...

Objective Effective self-assessment is a cornerstone of lifelong professional development; however, evidence suggests physicians have a limited ability to self-assess. Novel strategies to improve the accuracy of learner self-assessment are needed. Our institution's surgical entrustable professional activity (EPA) implementation strategy incorporate...

Objective: Concerns over resident ability to practice effectively after graduation have led to the competency-based medical education movement. Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) may facilitate competency-based medical education in surgery, but implementation is challenging. This manuscript describes 1 strategy used to implement EPAs into...

Simulators have been widely adopted to help surgical trainees learn procedural rules and acquire basic psychomotor skills, and research indicates that this learning transfers to clinical practice. However, few studies have explored the use of simulators to help more advanced learners improve their understanding of operative practices. To model how...

Background: Interest is growing in simulation-based continuing medical education courses for practicing surgeons. However, little research has explored the instruction employed during these courses. This study examines instruction practices used during an annual simulation-based continuing medical education course. Methods: Audio-video data were...

Background: The American Board of Surgery has proposed a competency-based training model, which relies on entrustable professional activities (EPAs) to assess and document competence. No data exist defining competence for surgical consultation, one of five proposed trial EPAs. Methods: Qualitative interviews performed with 23 surgical faculty at...

Background: Given their variegated backgrounds, surgeons taking continuing medical education (CME) courses possess different learning needs. This study examines the relationship between surgeons' levels of experience and the questions they asked in a simulation-based CME course. Methods: We analyzed transcribed audio-video data collected from su...

Background: This paper explores a method for assessing intraoperative performance by modeling how surgeons integrate psychomotor, procedural, and cognitive skills to manage errors. Methods: Audio-video data were collected from general surgery residents (N = 45) performing a simulated laparoscopic ventral hernia repair. Errors were identified usi...

MAO-A and MAO-B are located 20 kb from each other in tail-to-tail orientation on the p arm of the X chromosome. They exhibit nearly identical exon-intron organization, suggesting derivation from the duplication of a common ancestral gene, though no studies have yet to explore the evolution of these genes. To this end, the present study examined the...

We analyzed global patterns of expression in genes related to glutamatergic neurotransmission (glutamatergic genes) in healthy human adult brain before determining the effects of chronic alcohol and cocaine exposure on gene expression in the hippocampus.RNA-Seq data from ‘BrainSpan’ was obtained across 16 brain regions from nine control adults. We...