Resident and Fellow Performance and Supervision in Surgical Oncology Procedures

Background: Previous research has highlighted concerns among trainees and attendings that general surgery training and fellowship are inadequately preparing trainees for practice. Providing trainees with supervision that matches their proficiency may help bridge this gap. We sought to benchmark operative performance and supervision levels among senior surgery residents (PGY-4 or -5) and fellows performing general surgical oncology procedures.

Study design: Observational data were obtained from the Society for Improving Medical Procedural Learning OR application for core general surgical oncology procedures performed at 103 unique residency and fellowship programs. Procedures were divided into breast and soft tissue, endocrine, and hepatopancreatobiliary. Case evaluations completed by trainees and attendings were analyzed to benchmark trainee operative performance and level of supervision.

Results: There were 4,907 resident cases and 425 fellow cases. Practice-ready performance, as assessed by trainees and faculty, was achieved by relatively low proportions of residents and fellows for breast and soft tissue cases (residents: 38%, fellows: 48%), endocrine cases (residents: 22%, fellows: 41%), and hepatopancreatobiliary cases (residents: 10%, fellows: 40%). Among cases in which trainees did achieve practice-ready performance, supervision only was provided for low proportions of cases as rated by trainees (residents: 17%, fellows: 18%) and attendings (residents: 21%, fellows 25%).

Conclusions: In a sample of 103 residency and fellowship programs, attending surgeons rarely provided senior residents and fellows with levels of supervision commensurate to performance for surgical oncology procedures, even for high-performing trainees. These findings suggest a critical need for surgical training programs to prioritize providing greater levels of independence to trainees that have demonstrated excellent performance.