Let the Games Begin!

There is a famous set of books and movies written by JK Rowling in which the students are divided into teams and points are allocated for various triumphs. It seemed to work. This has been replicated at other surgical residency programs and it has shown that a little healthy competition increases learning and team camaraderie. We have just recently implemented a Resident Meritocracy Competition in our surgery residency program. Residents have been divided into teams, each team is lead by one of our chief residents. Residents are able to earn points for their teams by participating in academic activities, timely completion of administrative tasks, submitting abstracts to local/regional/national meetings or papers to medical journals, being voted as the best medical student teacher and so forth. The faculty will also play a key role and will be held to task by the residents to support their team by being present at teaching conferences, providing feedback on operative cases and completing resident evaluations in a timely fashion! The team with the most points at the end of the academic year will have their names engraved on a trophy which will be displayed for years to come as well as a nice dinner to celebrate.