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About
Setting standards and leading innovation for the practice of anesthesiology since 1938
Resident Reach is a new formative assessment that aims to foster supplemental learning and offer insight to inform feedback on residents’ medical knowledge throughout training.
The 2026 Resident Reach pilot will take place between Sept. 8 and Oct. 27, 2026, during which all CA-1 through CA-3 residents in participating programs will receive access to Resident Reach.
Since the 2016 introduction of MOCA Minute, programs have expressed interest in the ABA exploring a similar longitudinal assessment for residents.
In late 2024, the ABA conducted a Resident Reach pilot with a small group of programs and about 50 residents. Building on learnings from that initial pilot, the ABA has selected a specific group of programs, representing a range of anesthesiology training environments across the country, to participate in a broader fall 2026 platform pilot.
The ABA’s Strategic Plan solidified a strategic need to engage trainees and programs early, including through a new formative assessment for residents.
Resident Reach is not a question bank. Instead, it aims to strengthen clinical reasoning and encourage dialogue between residents and teaching faculty. Programs are encouraged to use resident responses as a starting point for feedback and discussion with teaching faculty, such as during intraoperative teaching or hallway conversations.
Weekly Questions
Six questions per week, divided into two sets of three, will be released every Tuesday throughout the pilot, excluding the final week. Program directors will receive early access to questions the Friday preceding each Tuesday.
Program Directors can track residents’ progress over time and identify where they may need additional attention through dashboards accessible via RTID.
Data dashboards can be filtered by CA year and/or individual resident. They present residents’ responses to questions, including free-form written answers, with the ability to search, filter and export answers that can be shared with teaching faculty. These may inform discussions about clinical judgment and reasoning behind responses.
Questions?
For support with Resident Reach, please reach out to coms@theaba.org
Have additional questions? See more in our full FAQs for program directors, linked below.
Resident Reach is a longitudinal formative assessment currently being explored in a pilot format. It’s designed to spark conversation between anesthesiology residents and teaching faculty, strengthen residents’ clinical reasoning, and offer insight into their medical knowledge and confidence throughout training. Through this pilot, the ABA seeks to understand how Resident Reach supports resident learning and dialogue within programs.
Program directors are expected to help facilitate participation in Resident Reach within their programs. During the pilot, they have the ability to track residents’ progress over time and identify where they may need additional attention.
Their role may include sharing pilot information, encouraging residents and teaching faculty to engage with one another, and reviewing dashboard insights throughout the pilot.
Programs are encouraged to use resident responses as a starting point for discussion among residents and teaching faculty, though this will not be structured within the platform. Program directors can encourage residents and teaching faculty to engage with one another throughout the pilot and may share resident learning insights with teaching faculty as needed.
This might include reviewing weekly questions in advance, using them as teaching opportunities during educational sessions, discussing different clinical approaches and reasoning, and encouraging participation.
Teaching faculty play an important role in helping residents reflect on and discuss Resident Reach questions. The pilot is intended to spark ongoing conversation about clinical reasoning and decision-making. Discussions with teaching faculty and attendings should be residents’ primary avenue for clarifying questions and deepening understanding. Resident Reach discussions may occur during intraoperative teaching, case reviews or other informal teaching opportunities throughout the week.
Program directors will receive full PDFs of weekly questions, pre- and post-pilot surveys and access to resident performance information, which they are encouraged to share with teaching faculty for review, discussion and feedback purposes.
The Resident Reach pilot runs Sept. 8 through Oct. 27, 2026. New question sets will be released every Tuesday at 9 a.m. ET from Sept. 8 through Oct. 13. Residents will have two weeks to complete each question set.
Program directors will be able to review residents’ full written responses, along with participation and correctness rates for their program compared to national averages. Data can be filtered and searched by resident or question, and exported for further review. Together, this can help program directors track resident progress over time, identify where residents may need additional attention, and tailor conversations to address gaps in clinical reasoning and judgment.
Yes, the data can be viewed from multiple levels. Program directors can look at the response rates for individuals or view by program and CA year. Cascading questions will show green or red to indicate correctness of responses captured via the MC option, while free-form written responses will be indicated by a dash (—).
