Inner Deliberations of Surgeons Treating Critically-ill Emergency General Surgery Patients: A Qualitative Analysis

30% of elderly patients who require emergency general surgery (EGS) die in the year after the operation. Preoperative discussions can determine whether patients receive preference-sensitive care. Theoretically, surgeons frame their conversations after systematically assessing the risks and benefits of management options based on the clinical characteristics of each case. However, little is known about how surgeons actually deliberate about those options.

To identify variables that influence surgeons' assessment of management options for critically-ill EGS patients.

We conducted semi-structured interviews with 40 general surgeons in western Pennsylvania who worked in a variety of hospital settings. Interviews explored perioperative decision-making by asking surgeons to think aloud about selected memorable cases and a standardized case vignette of a frail patient with acute mesenteric ischemia. We used constant comparative methods to analyze interview transcripts and inductively developed a framework for the decision-making process.

Surgeons averaged 13 years (standard deviation (SD) 10.4) of experience; 40% specialized in trauma/acute care surgery. Important themes regarding the main topic of "perioperative decision-making" included many considerations beyond the clinical characteristics of cases. Surgeons described the importance of variables ranging from the availability of institutional resources to professional norms. Surgeons often remarked on their desire to achieve individual flow, team efficiency, and concordant expectations of treatment and prognosis with patients.

This is the first study to explore how surgeons decide among management options for critically-ill EGS patients. Surgeons' decision-making reflected a broad array of clinical, personal, and institutional variables. Effective interventions to ensure preference-sensitive care for EGS patients must address all of these variables.