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106 TRAINING IN GASTROINTESTINAL ENDOSCOPY, THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE S Alqahtani, P Beck BACKGROUND: One of the greatest tasks facing today's academic gastroenterologist is training residents to perform endoscopic procedures adequately and safely. Most organizations and hospital privileging committees have relied on estimated numbers of procedures performed as a surrogate marker for competence. The American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) recommends trainee to perform more than 130 diagnostic gastroscopies and 140 colonoscopies (CS) before competency can be assessed.
Gastrointestinal Research Group, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta
PURPOSE: To compare the number of gastrointestinal endoscopic procedures and therapeutic interventions performed by trainee and practicing gastroenterologists over two-year period.
METHODS: We reviewed all endoscopic procedures performed in our institution according to the endoscopist type of practice or training level. We reviewed procedures performed by the following four groups; GI fellows with faculty supervision, surgical residents, academic gastroenterologist (80% academic and 20 clinical) and full-time clinical gastroenterologists over two-year period. We excluded all endoscopic procedures performed outside our endoscopy unit, ie, procedures done in emergency room or critical care units.
RESULTS: Procedural data of 19 endoscopists (seven GI fellows, six surgical residents, three academic staff and three clinical staff) who performed 16,810 procedures were reviewed. The average number of endoscopic procedures performed over two years was; GI fellows 632 procedures/fellow (214 CS) surgical residents 158 (105 CS) , academic staff 807 (392 CS) and clinical staff 3006 (1642 CS).
CONCLUSION: All our GI fellows have achieved the required number of endoscopic procedures according to ASGE recommendation for competency assessment; however, only few surgical residents achieved this number. Future studies should provide further data to support evidence-based guidelines recommending minimum annual procedure numbers for maintaining endoscopic competence.