Evaluation Methods

Our residency program is built on a competency-based education model—an approach that emphasizes skill mastery, continuous assessment, and individualized progression. This framework reflects the future of modern surgical education and ensures our residents are prepared to meet the evolving demands of orthopedic practice.

Each resident maintains a dynamic “scorecard” that tracks their development throughout training. This includes standardized test performance (OITE), professionalism and communication evaluations, global faculty assessments, and focused semi-annual reviews. Increasingly, we are integrating real-time assessments of surgical skills using validated tools to provide actionable feedback and support technical growth.

The Clinical Competency Committee (CCC) convenes biannually to evaluate each resident’s progress across ACGME milestones. Following these reviews, the program director and associate program director meet individually with residents to discuss performance, set goals, and tailor educational plans to support continued development.

Our program actively utilizes the ABOS Knowledge, Skills, and Behavior (KSB) Program to assess resident competence in three key domains: orthopedic knowledge, surgical skills, and professional behavior. Residents request real-time evaluations from faculty using validated tools, including the AAOS Orthopaedic In-Training Examination (OITE), the Ottawa Surgical Competency Operating Room Evaluation (O-SCORE), and end-of-rotation behavior assessments. These evaluations are integrated into each resident’s scorecard and help guide individualized feedback and progression. Through the ABOS KSB+ platform, assessments are streamlined and aligned with ACGME procedure logging, ensuring consistency and national benchmarking.

We believe that skills training and assessment of skill in the skills lab are increasingly important parts of resident training, and we will remain at the forefront of developing and utilizing these methods.