IX. Format of the Oral Examination:
Prior to the oral examination, the candidate should send two copies bound only by a clip of their case presentation and choose the “hypothetical” category for the second room. A notice will be sent to the candidate prior to the deadline with information concerning when and where to send this information. On the day of the examination, each candidate will be asked to report approximately 30 minutes before their examination is to be conducted. It is highly recommended that the candidate wear good professional attire (such as a suit and tie for men) as recognition of their professionalism. Prior to beginning the format of the examination and the issues discussed in this memo will be reiterated. At this time the candidate will confirm the category for the case for their second examination. Just prior to the first examination, the candidate will then proceed to the first room for the first examination session. The 30 minute period starts with the candidate making the 5 minute case presentation discussed above of the case they have brought to the examination. After this, the two examiners will then ask questions about the case, testing the judgment and adaptability of the candidate. Aside from specific questions about the materials brought, the general question categories to be asked will be predefined by the Board. Some of these questions may revolve around aspects that actually happened within the specific case, or may be hypothetical in nature (What if ... happened?). Again, the major reason for the candidate to bring the case is to insure the candidate has a maximal opportunity to feel comfortable in the discussion of the case in what is an artificial environment.
The focus of questions that might be asked about the cases includes attempts to deal with the following situations and issues:
• preoperative considerations
• outcome and value of monitoring
• why and when to monitor
• anesthesia choice
• identify critical areas of the surgical procedure and basic operation sequence and procedures
• choice of modality (rational for specific types of monitoring in this specific case)
• waveform interpretation
• technical problems
• trouble shooting and machine problems
• dealing with deteriorating responses
• decision making without adequate data
• notifying the surgeon when problems arise
• appropriateness of networking
• supervising multiple rooms
• remote monitoring
• when should you be in the operating room
• technician supervision
• qualifications
• medico-legal issues
• documentation and ethics
Examples of the types of specific questions that might be asked, for example, for a scoliosis case might include:
• Would transcranial motor, SSEP or spinal stimulated responses is best for this patient? Why?
• If you could only monitor one of these, which would it be? Why?
• If you chose SSEP, would posterior tibial nerve or common peroneal nerve be best? Why?
• If transcranial MEP, would electrical or magnetic stimulation be best? Why?
• If the surgeon requested that you used these, what are your responsibilities for informed consent?
• What should the patient be told?
• If you chose to place an epidural recording catheter for these responsibilities, what should the patient be told?
• Does the actual surgical procedure or instrumentation make a difference in your monitoring choice?
• Would an anterior procedure be monitored differently than a posterior procedure? Why?
• How would monitoring be different if pedicle screws were used rather than sublaminar wires?
• Assuming a posterior procedure with rods, hooks, sublaminar wires and pedicle screws, what do you tell the anesthesiologist about your needs in the operating room?
• If muscle recordings are planned, what are the needs regarding muscle relaxation?
• Are these needs different for monitoring pedicle screws as opposed to transcranial motor evoked responses?
• It is important to note that some questions will involve problems during the case (whether they actually happened or not)?
The ability to respond to the following example questions will assist in assessing the “adaptability” of the candidate. Examples of questions include:
• During the surgical release of ligaments, the amplitude of the cortical SSEP becomes reduced over a 20 minute period. How much reduction is safe?
• How could you determine if this problem was related to anesthesia agents?
• Would median nerve SSEP have any value here? Why?
• Does it matter if the latency is unchanged or prolonged?
• When do you notify the surgeon?
• Would your concern be different if the response change occurred over 3 minutes rather than 20 minutes?
• During placement of sublaminar wires a sudden, complete unilateral loss occurs in the cortical SSEP. How is the fastest way to trouble shoot whether this is a technical problem?
• When told, the surgeon is convinced that they have done nothing unusual and wants you to recheck. What do you do if the problem is persistent and the surgeon refuses to change his procedure?
• What do you document and what traces should you save?
• Should you continue monitoring?
After the completion of the first examination, the candidate will have a 15 minute break to collect their thoughts about the second case scenario from the category and case type they have chosen. At the appointed time they will move to the second examination room where the examination will revolve around the case scenario provided by the Board. This scenario will include a short description of the case but neither includes a great deal of detail or actual tracings. In fact, the case will be more hypothetical in nature and allow discussion of preoperative planning of a consultant nature. The discussions can the move to a discussion of monitoring and problems that might occur during monitoring.
An example of such a case could include:
Scoliosis: A 24 year old woman presents for posterior instrumentation and correction of idiopathic Scoliosis. She has developed weakness in her left leg prior to surgery and has limited exercise tolerance due to shortness of breath.
The questioning format for the second examination is similar to the questions listed above with the specific questions molded to be relevant to the specific case type and category. Obviously there is no real case or tracings (like the presentation brought by the candidate) so all of the questions will be of the “what if” type. Within each examination session, the questioning will be divided between the two examiners as the examiners feel appropriate. The question categories and examination format will be pre established by the Board so as to provide consistency between the examinations and prevent a “free for all” question session. As such, the first examiner will ask the first question and then continue asking related questions until the answer to that first category is sufficiently explored. In general, the examiners will likely have some minimal expectations for how a good candidate should respond to each question, although the reasoning is more important than the answer as often no single clear answer will apparent. The candidate can provide the best answer by listening to the question and simply answering that question without trying to guess what the question is about. In general, the most important aspect of the answer will likely be why the response given was given was chosen. In other words, in giving the answer the candidate should “think out loud” to show their reasoning. Although the aim is to seek questions that seek the judgment and adaptability of the candidate, it is inevitable that some knowledge questions must be asked as the specific knowledge relevant to the question will form the basis of why the specific recommendation or judgment was rendered. In order to cover a maximal amount of material, it is important that the candidate's answers be succinct. The ability to keep the answers short and to the point will demonstrate the ability of the candidate to readily focus on the important aspects. This will also allow the examiners to move on to other aspects of the questioning as it is important for the examiners to cover a large number of questions during the examination (but not necessarily all the questions). If a question is answered that the candidate is unable to answer it is best for the candidate to say they cannot answer that to allow the examination to move on to questions they can answer. Although not answering too many questions will cause the examiners to down grade the candidate, an occasional non-answer are to be expected in the artificial nature of the examination. During the examination it is important to recognize that the examiners will be taking notes. These notes will be used at the end of the examination to render a score by evaluating the importance of each question to the overall score (i.e. heavily weighting important aspects and down playing aspects of lesser importance). The candidate should also be aware that a third (or more) person(s) may be in the examination room. This “observer” will be present for observing the examination to evaluate the performance of the examiners to insure quality and consistency between examinations. This third person(s) will not be grading the candidate and will not influence the examination; the candidate should ignore their presence. The Board feels this observer policy is extremely important to insure a high quality examination. These observers will not interrupt the examination, participate in the scoring or influence the individual scores, but will render their opinion about the quality of the examiners technique to the Board should questions arise as to the suitability of any examiner to examine candidates. The end of the first examination period will be signaled by a “rap” on the door. Even if mid sentence, the candidate should politely cease the conversation and will be escorted outside the examination suite to the greeting area. During this time they will be presented with their hypothetical case and can begin to prepare. Also during this time the examiners that have just completed the first oral examination will conduct the scoring. Each examiner will conduct the scoring independent of the other examiner in the 15 minutes between examinations. As mentioned above, the scoring is a complex weighting of the different components of the oral examination, with certain aspects having more importance than others. The examiners will not discuss the exam or candidate until after the scoring is complete. The scoring of the candidate will not be changed after the original scoring such that each candidate will get four independent scores. When the time for the second examination arrives, the candidate will be invited into the room. As mentioned above, the second examination will be similar to the first except that the case scenario will be chosen by the Board for the case type and category chosen by the candidate. The candidate will be given the short scenario to review at the start of the examination prior to questioning. Also similar to the first examination, the questioning will be divided equally between the two examiners and also follow question categories established by the Board. The end of the time will similarly be signaled by a “rap” on the door following which the candidate is free to leave. |
