A Comparison between Emergency Medicine Residency Training Programs in the United States and Saudi Arabia from the Residents’ Perception

Objectives. This study was designed to compare the trainees’ perception of emergency medicine (EM) training in the United States (US) and Saudi Arabia (SA) and to identify residents’ levels of confidence and points of satisfaction in education, procedural skills, and work environment. Method. An IRB-exempt anonymous web-based survey was distributed to five EM residency training programs in the USA and three residency regions in SA. Results. 342 residents were polled with a 20% response rate (16.8% USA and 25.8% SA). The Saudi residents responded less positively to the questions about preparation for their boards’ examinations, access to multiple educational resources, and weekly academic activities. The Saudi trainees felt less competent in less common procedures than US trainees. American trainees also more strongly agree that they have more faculty interest in their education compared to the Saudi trainees. The Saudi residents see more patients per hour compared to their US peers. Conclusion. These findings may be due to the differences in training techniques including less formal didactics and simulation experience in SA and more duty hour regulations in the USA. 1. Introduction There is an increasing need for emergency medicine (EM) development and EM trained physicians throughout the world. EM in Saudi Arabia (SA) is based on the North American model and is considered a new specialty which has nonetheless grown dramatically in the last decade [1]. The United States (US) was one of the first countries to establish and recognize EM as a specialty and many countries use this system as a model for EM training. Because EM training is a relatively new endeavor in Saudi Arabia, our aim is to evaluate and compare Saudi and US residents’ level of confidence and satisfaction with their training from trainees’ perspectives. To our knowledge, there are no similar studies reported in the literature, and no studies compare residency training systems between countries. This research contributes to the literature by addressing this gap. 2. Materials and Methods 2.1. Study Design The survey was designed to query the residents on many of the standards for U.S. EM residency training and other important topics. We used many of the questions from the Council of Emergency Medicine Residency Directors (CORD) survey and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) residents’ survey to establish our survey. The survey was divided into 3 sections: education, clinical skills, and work environment with a total of 17 questions. The study was reviewed by the