General Surgery Resident Complement and Operative Autonomy - Size Matters

Operative autonomy has progressively decreased for surgery residents. This study investigates the effect of general surgery resident complement size at Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals on operative autonomy for the residents. We hypothesize that smaller complements of residents would result in fewer opportunities for operative autonomy.

Retrospective analysis of the Veterans Affairs Surgical Quality Improvement Program (VASQIP) database.

Operative cases within the VASQIP database from July 1, 2004 to September 30, 2019 were analyzed.

All general surgery procedures performed at teaching VA hospitals from January 2004 to September 2019 were included. The level of resident operative autonomy is defined as follows: attending primary surgeon with or without a resident (AP), resident primary surgeon with attending scrubbed (AR), and resident primary without attending scrubbed (RP). Resident complement is based on funded resident positions at each VA hospital during the academic year 2017-2018 and stratified into 3 groups: small (≤4), medium (>4-<7), and large (≥7). The primary outcome was the proportion of operative autonomy for each resident complement group. Secondary outcomes were level of autonomy over time, and mortality and morbidity for RP procedures. Categorical data were compared with Chi-squared test.

Four hundred sixty-one thousand seven hundred thirty-four procedures across 92 VA hospitals with general surgery residents were included in the analysis. There were 126,062 cases performed at 29 small resident complement hospitals, 135,539 at 28 medium resident complement hospitals, and 200,133 at 35 large resident complement hospitals. The percentage of RP procedures was higher with increasing resident complement (2.1% vs 6.8% vs 9.9%, p < 0.001). RP procedures have decreased over time in all groups, but the relative decrease was less pronounced as resident complement increased (79.5% vs 73.3% vs 64.7%, p < 0.001). There was no significant difference in adjusted 30-day all-cause mortality between groups.

Increased resident complement at VA hospitals is associated with increased resident autonomy in resident primary procedures. Resident autonomy has decreased over time regardless of complement size, but it is less dramatic at sites with more residents. Increasing resident complement at a site may improve operative autonomy, leading to an improved educational experience for surgical residents.