Does Resident Participation in the Surgical Fixation of Hip Fractures Increase Operative Time or Affect Outcomes?

Surgical fixation of hip fractures is a common procedure at teaching hospitals with resident support and in community hospitals.

We evaluated to what extent participation by residents in hip fracture fixation affects operative times or outcomes.

Operations were performed by three surgeons who operate at a teaching hospital with resident support, and at a community hospital without residents in the same metropolitan area.

We performed a retrospective analysis of operative time and early post-operative outcomes on a series of 314 patients with hip fractures (Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Osteosynthesefragen/Orthopaedic Trauma Association A1-3, B1-3) treated with surgical fixation between April 2012 and March 2015; 177 patients at the community hospital, and 137 at the teaching hospital.

Multivariate regression assessed the effect of hospital type, adjusting for age, gender, American Society of Anesthesiologist classification, and Charlson comorbidity index.

We found lower median operative time at the community hospital than the teaching hospital (46 minutes, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [43, 52] versus 75 minutes, 95% CI = [70, 81]) and lower estimated blood loss (177.3 mL, 95% CI=[158.6, 195.1] versus 234.8 mL, 95% CI = [196.4, 273.6]), but no differences in transfusion requirement, length of stay, or discharge to skilled nursing facility. Adjusted odds ratio for thirty-day mortality at the teaching hospital was 5.44 (95% CI = [1.22, 24.1]).

We found longer operative times and elevated estimated blood loss with resident involvement in surgical fixation of hip fractures. There was a difference in 30-day mortality between the groups, although this cannot simply be attributed to resident involvement as there are many other factors related to mortality.