The Relation of Surgical Volume to Competence: When Is Enough, Enough?

Given the inherent risk in surgical intervention and the need for the optimal utilization of health care resources, achieving high-quality surgical care is a priority for the American health care system, and competent surgeons are critical to reaching this goal. Despite the multifactorial nature of patient safety and satisfaction, surgeon competence is often oversimplified to an assessment of volume because of the ease of collection and comparison. In any practice model, the analysis of competence is complex, but the components of clinical skill for military surgeons further include multiple areas of expertise, which, although superficially unrelated to surgical currency, augment the overall care delivered by these clinicians. Thus, volume as a solitary indicator of skill excludes the unique circumstances encompassed in military service. In this paper, the factors comprising volume and competence are explained, as well as the additional factors unique to military medicine. Furthermore, process improvements are proposed for assessing and optimizing surgical competence in the Military Health System.