Patient Perspectives on Resident Involvement in Plastic Surgery

Objective: The objective of this study is to understand how patients at a large academic hospital perceive the training levels of residents and attendings and their perspectives on resident involvement in surgery.

Design: This is a cross-sectional survey-based study.

Setting: Patients who received care at Vanderbilt University Medical Center were asked to respond to our anonymous electronic survey via email.

Participants: There were 3370 patients who underwent plastic surgery within the last 3 years at Vanderbilt University Medical Center were asked to participate. Eight hundred thirty-seven surveys were returned, representing a 24.8% response rate.

Results: There were 58.7% of the patients that were confident that a resident has completed medical school. There were 58.4% that report that they usually know if a resident will be assisting their surgeon in the OR, but 86.3% agree that they would like to know if a resident will be involved in their surgery. There were 76.3% that are comfortable with a resident performing parts of their surgery as long as their surgeon is ready to take over if needed.

Conclusions: Patient understanding of a resident physician's education and abilities remains low. There is a discrepancy between the number of patients who would like to know if a resident will be involved in their surgery versus the number who are actually told if a resident will be involved.