Anesthesia Learning in the Digital Age: Are Program Directors and Residents on the Same Page?

backgroundIn our current digital age, textbooks have been supplemented or supplanted by multiple online modalities for knowledge acquisition. Trainees, often from a younger generation than their program directors (PDs), prefer

methodsA national cross-sectional survey was conducted in the United States in 2018-2019 to characterize anesthesiology resident and PD perceptions of academic knowledge acquisition.

resultsOf the 149 PDs, 85 completed the survey (57%). Of the 85 PDs, 36 forwarded the survey to residents. Of the 1414 residents who received the survey, 503 residents responded to the survey (36%). The PDs thought residents used didactics, assigned reading, and scheduled simulations more than residents reported (

conclusionsThere is a discrepancy between PD and resident views on where and how knowledge acquisition occurs. Asynchronous forms of education (especially podcasts) are popular, but they are rarely assigned by programs. Although residents have a wide variety of learning preferences, textbook and online reading may be associated with higher In-Training Exam scores (a common way that knowledge acquisition is measured). The PDs should consider providing multiple options for optimizing knowledge acquisition, including textbook reading, to meet resident preferences and maximize testing success.