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Emily Wise, MD; Deeptej Singh, MD; Megan Moore, MD; Benjamin Hayes, MD, PhD; Katie Brooks Biello, MPH; Mary Curry Dickerson, MD; Rachel Ness, MD; Alan Geller, MPH, RN

Arch Dermatol. 2009;145(10):1131-1136.

Objective  To determine factors related to residents’ self-reported skill level for the skin cancer examination (SCE).

Design  Survey of residents in November 2003.

Setting  Four US residency programs.

Participants  Medical residents in family medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, and internal medicine and specialists.

Main Outcome Measure  Proportion of residents reporting their current skill level for the performance of the SCE.

Results  Of 454 surveys distributed, 342 residents completed the survey (75.3% response rate). Clinical training for the SCE during residency was infrequent. During residency, 75.8% were never trained in the SCE, 55.3% never observed an SCE, and 57.4% never practiced the examination. Only 15.9% of residents reported being skilled in the SCE. However, the conduct of 4 SCEs (or slightly more than 1 per each year of residency) was associated with manifold increases in self-reported skill levels.

Conclusions  Information now collected from 7 medical schools and 4 residency programs underscores the need for more supervised opportunities to enable physicians in training to perform an SCE during routine patient examinations.

Author Affiliations: Department of Dermatology, Boston University School of Medicine (Dr Wise), and Division of Public Health Practice, Harvard School of Public Health (Mr Geller), Boston, Massachusetts; Department of Dermatology, State University of New York Downstate College of Medicine (Dr Singh), Brooklyn, New York; Department of Dermatology, Kaiser Permanente Antioch Medical Center, California (Dr Moore); Division of Dermatology, Vanderbilt School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee (Dr Hayes); Department of Epidemiology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (Ms Brooks Biello); Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans (Dr Dickerson); and Department of Dermatology, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks (Dr Ness).

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