The perils and triumphs of night surgical residents across South Australia

The training of junior medical officers on surgical night shifts is difficult. We aimed to evaluate the training and support provided to these junior doctors during the course of their night rotations across the state of South Australia in 2011.

Standardised questionnaires were anonymously completed aimed at assessing the strengths and weaknesses of training provided to surgical night residents. Results were analysed using a host of predictors and outcomes to assess for the significance of responses across the state and between institutions.

Twenty eight of the thirty two residents (87.5%) who completed surgical night rotations in South Australia in 2011 responded. Based on a visual analogue scale (0 to 10) residents described their level of job satisfaction ranging between 3 to 9, mean 6.5 and median 7.5. Seventeen (53.57%) experienced bullying at some time during their night rotation. A quarter of the residents reported the frequency of bullying as being "occasional". We found that twenty three (82.14%) of the respondents experienced some reluctance in calling senior staff. This correlated with a large number of residents (twenty- 71.43%) who felt their calls were at times unwelcome. The majority of the night residents felt that their exposure to teaching was inadequate (eighteen -64.29%). Seventeen of the residents (60.71%) reported that their exposure was never, very rare or rare.

Several concerning issues were highlighted by our study. The most significant of these were: perceived patient compromise from a reluctance to call senior staff, the presence of workplace bullying and a paucity of teaching. A number of areas for improvement have been suggested which aim to provide RMOs with greater access to teaching, support and orientation.