Potential Consequences of Patient Complications for Surgeon Well-being: A Systematic Review

Patient complications occur in all areas of surgery, and managing them is an important part of surgical practice. Several investigations have examined whether surgeon health affects patient outcomes; however, to date, whether adverse patient outcomes affect surgeon well-being has not been comprehensively examined.

To examine how surgical complications in their patients affect the health of surgeons, in particular emotional outcomes, coping strategies, and support mechanisms.

A systematic literature review was conducted to identify studies evaluating how patient complications affect surgeons with the aim of determining emotional outcomes, coping strategies, and support mechanisms. Studies pertaining to burnout alone or not conducted in surgeons were excluded. The databases searched included MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar, with all literature available on these data sets until the search date of May 1, 2018; collected data were analyzed between May 2 and June 1, 2018. The reference lists of all included studies, as well as related review articles, were manually searched to identify further relevant studies. An inductive approach was used to identify common themes.

Nine case series or cross-sectional studies from the United Kingdom or North America were found (8518 unique participants), with 1 study in surgical trainees. Across all studies, surgeons were affected emotionally after complications, with adverse consequences in their professional and personal lives. Four themes were identified within the literature: the adverse emotional influence of complications (anxiety, guilt, sadness, shame, interference with professional and leisure activities) after intraoperative adverse events; coping mechanisms used by surgeons and trainees (limited discussion with colleagues, exercise, artistic or creative outlets, alcohol and substance abuse); institutional support mechanisms and barriers to support (clinical conferences, discussion with mentors, a perception that emotional distress would be perceived as a constitutional weakness); and the consequences of complications in future clinical practice (changes in practice, introduction of protocols, education of staff members, and participating in root-cause analysis).

This study's findings suggest that complications affect surgeons adversely across multiple domains. Further efforts are required at a personal, departmental, institutional, and organizational level to provide effective support. This review highlights that the psychological consequences of patient complications seem to be an important occupational health issue for surgeons.