Improving Satisfaction With Operating Room Feedback: An Effective, Low-Profile, No-Cost Intervention

Objective: The objective of this study was to develop and implement an effective and minimally invasive tool to enhance formative and goal specific feedback for general surgery residents in the operating room.

Design: Placards reminding surgical faculty and residents to engage in goal directed feedback were installed at scrub sinks outside of every operating room. The purpose was to encourage both residents and faculty to agree on a learning goal before the case, teach and learn that goal during the case, and discuss progress and next steps after the case. Preintervention and postintervention questionnaires were administered via Qualtrics Online Survey Software to all general surgery residents and core faculty members.

Setting: Placards were installed at every scrub sink across all 4 hospitals associated with Yale School of Medicine General Surgery Residency over a 6-month time period.

Participants: Respondents included general surgery residents and core surgical faculty of the Yale School of Medicine General Surgery Residency.

Results: Following the intervention, residents reported a statistically significant increase in preoperative discussion of learning goals, debriefing about specific learning goals postoperatively, and overall satisfaction with feedback (p < 0.01). Conversely, faculty perception of feedback did not change as a result of the intervention with faculty consistently reporting higher rates of preoperative learning goal discussions, providing goal specific feedback intraoperatively, and debriefing postoperatively when compared to residents (p < 0.01).

Conclusions: Formative feedback reminder placards placed near operating rooms serve as a low-profile, no-cost intervention to improve general surgery resident satisfaction with operative feedback and increase the perceived rate of goal specific feedback discussions both pre- and postoperatively.