Teaching and assessing competency in retinal lasers in ophthalmology residency

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has mandated that residency programs teach and assess six specific competencies (ie, medical knowledge, patient care, communication and interpersonal skills, professionalism, practice-based learning, and systems-based learning). To the authors' knowledge, there is no standardized and widely used curriculum for teaching and assessing resident competencies in retinal lasers. METHODS: The pertinent literature on resident education in retinal lasers is reviewed and specific "good practices" for teaching and assessing laser competency are presented. RESULTS: Development and deployment of educational tools that teach and assess laser competency simultaneously; are reliable, reproducible, and valid; have low faculty time burden; and are affordable, generalizable, and fair are recommended. CONCLUSION: Retinal laser competency can be taught and assessed in ophthalmology residency training programs. Future research will be needed to provide evidence that these teaching and assessment tools produce improved educational and patient outcomes and provide verifiable, reliable, and valid evidence of resident competence in retinal lasers.