Reimagining general surgery resident selection: Collaborative innovation through design thinking

Introduction: The process by which surgery residency programs select applicants is complex, opaque, and susceptible to bias. Despite attempts by program directors and educational researchers to address these issues, residents have limited ability to affect change within the process at present. Here, we present the results of a design thinking brainstorm to improve resident selection and propose this technique as a framework for surgical residents to creatively solve problems and generate actionable changes. Methods: Members of the Collaboration of Surgical Education Fellows (CoSEF) used the design thinking framework to brainstorm ways to improve the resident selection process. Members participated in one virtual focus group focused on identifying pain points and developing divergent solutions to those pain points. Pain points and solutions were subsequently organized into themes. Finally, members participated in a second virtual focus group to design prototypes to test the proposed solutions. Results: Sixteen CoSEF members participated in one or both focus groups. Participants identified twelve pain points and 57 potential solutions. Pain points and solutions were grouped into the three themes of transparency, fairness, and applicant experience. Members subsequently developed five prototype ideas that could be rapidly developed and tested to improve resident selection. Conclusions: The design thinking framework can help surgical residents come up with creative ideas to improve pain points within surgical training. Furthermore, this framework can supplement existing quantitative and qualitative methods within surgical education research. Future work will be needed to implement the prototypes devised during our sessions and turn them into complete interventions. Key message: In this paper, we demonstrate the results of a resident-led design thinking brainstorm on improving resident selection in which our team identified twelve pain points in resident selection, ideated 57 solutions, and developed five prototypes for further testing. In addition to sharing our results, we believe design thinking can be a useful framework for creative problem solving within surgical education.