Utilizing the DiSC Assessment in Surgical Residency Leadership Training to Address Communication Skill Acquisition: A Kern Six-step Approach to Curriculum Development

Objective: Effective communication is essential in delivering high-quality patient care, and in recent years, resident education has expanded to focus on nontechnical skills and communication training. The "Everything DiSC" model is a communication inventory tool used to help employers and employees gain insight into how an individual may communicate within a team and how others may perceive similarities and differences in communication styles, comprising of Dominance (D), Influence (i), Steadiness (S), and Conscientiousness (C). In this report, we describe our experience mapping the DiSC model to the Kern 6-step framework for curriculum development and summarize residents' feedback several years following its implementation.

Design: A general needs assessment was conducted to identify the problem of a lack of a formalized communication and leadership education and performed a general needs assessment. A curriculum was developed for a single academic surgical residency program to address development of nontechnical skills. We designed the leadership curriculum to be given over 4 sessions, with topics including from leadership styles, working within groups, feedback, and wellness. We utilized the DiSC tool, which is a 79-question survey, to establish communication styles of each of our residents and to determine the DiSC style.

Setting: This study was conducted at a single academic institution within a surgical residency training program.

Participants: This study included surgical residents at a single academic surgical training program.

Results: The initial needs assessment survey was completed by 28 of 36 residents, with all residents surveyed (100%) agreeing that communication training was important. In contrast, only 21% agreed that they had received adequate training on communication during residency. 28 residents completed the DiSC Year-in-Review Survey, which indicated that overall, the residents felt that DiSC was useful throughout the year. The majority of residents listed learning and understanding other people's communication style as what they appreciated most about the DiSC sessions.

Conclusions: The inclusion of behavioral assessment tools within surgical residency education can provide an opportunity for residents to evaluate their communication techniques and provide a gained awareness across various settings. Continued focus on communication skills, such as with the use of the DiSC model, can enhance patient care at any institution providing such training. This leadership curriculum aided our surgical residency program and can likely facilitate similar value within other training institutions.