Leadership skills curriculum development for residents and fellows: A needs-assessment

Background: Non-technical skills (NTS) curricula have demonstrated success in surgical residencies. The purpose of this study is to examine the need for a structured leadership curriculum at our institution. Methods: A needs-assessment survey analyzing the importance of leadership domains, previously validated by Kazley et al. was delivered to 240 general surgery staff. Respondent groups were broken down into: Attendings, Residents, and Multi-Disciplinary. Statistical analyses were conducted using Cronbach's Alpha (alpha = 0.9259) and Fisher's exact test (pre-set p-value = 0.05). The importance of each competency was compared among groups and importance was defined as >75% important and very important responses. Results: Nineteen of 33 competencies were important for all groups, including 3 with 100% importance: interpersonal communication, team-work, and problem-solving. Several competencies showed statistically significant differences among groups. Conclusion: A diverse range of surgery staff agreed that 19 leadership domains are important to teach residents, with some variance among respondent groups.