Neonatal-perinatal medicine fellow procedural experience and competency determination: results of a national survey.

Abstract

Ensuring that neonatal-perinatal medicine (NPM) fellows attain competency in performing neonatal procedures is a requirement of training-competent neonatologists. A survey of NPM fellows was performed to determine the procedural experience of current fellows, investigate techniques used to track procedural experience and examine the methods programs use to verify procedural competency. One hundred and sixty-three fellows in 57 accredited training programs responded to the survey. Reported number of procedures provide contemporary normative data on procedural experience during training. The majority of fellows reported using an online reporting system to track experience. The most common technique to verify procedural competency was supervised practice until an arbitrary number of procedures had been performed. NPM fellow procedural experience increases significantly for most, but not all, procedures duration training. We speculate that supplemental simulation training for rare neonatal procedures would help ensure the competency of graduating NPM fellows. Experience alone is insufficient to verify competency. Further work on the accurate tracking of experience and verification of procedural competency is needed.