title: Graduating internal medicine residents' self-assessment and performance of advanced cardiac life support skills.
abstract: Internal medicine residents in the US must be competent to perform procedures including Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) to become board-eligible. Our aim was to determine if residents near graduation could assess their skills in ACLS procedures accurately. Participants were 40 residents in a university-based training program. Self-assessments of confidence in managing six ACLS scenarios were measured on a 0 (very low) to 100 (very high) scale. These were compared to reliable observational ratings of residents' performance on a high-fidelity simulator using published treatment protocols. Residents expressed strong self-confidence about managing the scenarios. Residents' simulator performance varied widely (range from 45% to 94%). Self-confidence assessments correlated poorly with performance (median r = 0.075). Self-assessment of performance by graduating internal medicine residents was not accurate in this study. The use of self-assessment to document resident competence in procedures such as ACLS is not a proxy for objective evaluation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL 60611, USA. dwayne@northwestern.edu
authors.forename: Diane B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Wayne
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Butter
authors.forename: Viva J
authors.initials: VJ
authors.lastname: Siddall
authors.forename: Monica J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Fudala
authors.forename: Leonard D
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Wade
authors.forename: Joe
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Feinglass
authors.forename: William C
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: McGaghie
mesh_terms: D022561:Advanced Cardiac Life Support; D002983:Clinical Competence; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine; D007396:Internship and Residency; D012647:Self-Assessment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States