Spine surgery patients had low knowledge of, moderate discomfort with overlapping surgery
Patients undergoing spine surgery and their families reported low knowledge of concurrent and overlapping surgery, as well as moderate discomfort with its use, according to results.
Among 146 patients and their family members, Andrew Kim, MS, and colleagues collected baseline knowledge of and comfort level with concurrent and overlapping surgery, opinions on when they felt that the attending should be present in the OR during the procedure, comfort level with different levels of surgical trainees and preferences regarding various aspects of the surgical procedure through a 36-item survey provided in the waiting area of an academic orthopedic spine surgery clinic.
“Our results showed that 58%, or a little over half of our respondents, felt comfortable undergoing overlapping surgery,” Kim said in his presentation at the Lumbar Spine Research Society Annual Meeting. “This was significantly higher than the 11% of respondents who reported comfort undergoing concurrent surgery.”
Prior to completing the survey, Kim noted 8% and 6% of patients reported being familiar with concurrent and overlapping surgery, respectively. Respondents reported an increase in comfort when non-critical portions of the operation were performed by those with a higher surgical training level without the attending in the room, according to results.
“What was interesting was there was no difference between interns and junior residents, and no difference between senior residents and fellows,” Kim said.
When residents were grouped in their first three years of training and compared with a group of senior residents and fellows, Kim noted 81% of respondents reported being comfortable with senior residents or fellows performing the non-critical portions of the surgery vs. 53% with interns or juniors. Similarly, 51% of respondents reported being comfortable with senior residents or fellows performing critical portions of the surgery without the attending in the room compared with 13% with interns or juniors, according to Kim.
“Our results regarding the non-critical and critical components suggest that increased surgical trainee level was associated with a significant increase in respondent comfort when it came to surgical trainees participating in the surgery,” Kim said.
Collapse
Read more about