Training residents in laparoscopic colorectal surgery: is supervised surgery safe?

Colorectal resections are increasingly performed laparoscopically, and training in laparoscopic resections in the Netherlands has shifted from a post-residency fellowship to training in residency. The question remains if this supervised surgery affects short-term patient outcome.

Between January 2010 and July 2014, 523 consecutive patients, who underwent laparoscopic colorectal resection, were selected from a prospective single-center database. All data were obtained from the maintained database and retrospectively analyzed. We compared the short-term outcome of patients who underwent laparoscopic colorectal surgery by a supervised fifth- or sixth-year resident compared to patients who underwent laparoscopic colorectal surgery performed by a dedicated colorectal surgeon. Statistical analysis was performed using the Chi-square test for categorical variables and the t test for continuous variables.

Almost 40 % of operations were performed by a resident with an even distribution in type of resection, except for the abdominal-perineal resection (residents vs. surgeon 3.57 vs. 8.26 %, p = 0.04) and the total number of patients who underwent preoperative chemoradiation (resident vs. surgeon 6.66 vs. 20.65 %, p = 0.04). No difference was found in operative time or per-operative blood loss. A higher conversion rate was found when surgery was performed by a supervised resident (residents vs. surgeon 17.34 vs. 9.17 %, p = 0.01), which could be attributed to case selection and one single year. No differences in major complications, oncological outcome and construction of a stoma were found. In the case of minor complications, a significantly increased percentage of bladder retention was found in the surgeon group (residents vs. surgeon 1 vs. 4.6 %, p = 0.03).

In this study, we found that patient safety and short-term outcome are not adversely affected when laparoscopic colorectal surgery is performed by a supervised fifth- or sixth-year resident.