Resident Involvement in Shoulder Arthroscopy Is Not Associated With Short-term Risk to Patients

Shoulder arthroscopy is a commonly performed, critical component of orthopaedic residency training. However, it is unclear whether there are additional risks to patients in cases associated with resident involvement.

To compare shoulder arthroscopy cases with and without resident involvement via a large, prospectively maintained national surgical registry to characterize perioperative risks.

Cohort study; Level of evidence, 3.

The prospectively maintained American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program registry was queried to identify patients who underwent 1 of 12 shoulder arthroscopy procedures from 2005 through 2012. Multivariate Poisson regression with robust error variance was used to compare the rates of postoperative adverse events and readmission within 30 days between cases with and without resident involvement. Multivariate linear regression was used to compare operative time between cohorts.

A total of 15,774 patients with shoulder arthroscopy were included in the study, and 12.3% of these had a resident involved with the case. The overall rate of adverse events was 1.09%. On multivariate analysis, resident involvement was not associated with increased rates of any aggregate or individual adverse event. There was also no association between resident involvement and risk of readmission within 30 days. Resident involvement was not associated with any difference in operative time (P = .219).

Resident involvement in shoulder arthroscopy was not associated with increased risk of adverse events, increased operative time, or readmission within 30 days. The results of this study suggest that resident involvement in shoulder arthroscopy cases is a safe method for trainees to learn these procedures.