Resident Operative Experience in Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery: Exposing the Divide

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requires an experience in hepatopancreatobiliary (HPB) surgery as part of general surgery residency training. The composition of this experience, however, is unclear. We set out to evaluate current trends in the HPB experience of US general surgery residents.

National ACGME operative case logs from 1990 to 2016 were examined with a focus on the HPB operative domains. Time-trend analysis was performed using ANOVA and linear regression analysis.

Median biliary, liver, and pancreatic operative volumes increased by 30%, 33%, and 27% over the 27-year study period (all p < 0.05). Both core and advanced HPB cases increased, but the rate of increase for core was four times greater than that of advanced. However, when cholecystectomy was excluded, this trend reversed such that HPB core operations decreased by 11 cases over the study period. Further analysis demonstrated that laparoscopic cholecystectomy comprised 90% of all biliary cases and 77% of all HPB cases for graduates in 2016. Finally, operative volume variability-the difference in case numbers between high and low volume residents-increased by 16%, 21%, and 73% for the biliary, liver, and pancreatic domains, respectively (all p < 0.05).

Despite increases in overall HPB operative volume, the HPB experience is changing for today's surgical trainees. Moreover, the HPB experience is comprised largely of a single operation-the cholecystectomy. Awareness of these trends is important for surgical educators to facilitate adequate exposure to HPB surgery among general surgery residents.