The Many Faces of Good Operating Room Supervision: Supervisors' and Residents' Perspectives After Operating Together.

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Surgical Training
• Qualitative Research

Background:

• Effective operating room (OR) learning hinges on both surgical proficiency and effective teaching skills.
• Current understanding of surgical educators' teaching skills relies on general perceptions from surveys and interviews.
• Limited insight exists into the specific behaviors and goals of good OR supervision based on real-time collaboration.

Purpose of the Study:

• To understand educator and resident perceptions of good OR supervision behavior during actual collaboration.
• To explore the underlying goals of effective OR supervision.
• To identify relationships between specific supervision behaviors and their intended goals.

Main Methods:

• 16 supervisor-resident dyads performing common surgical procedures were video-recorded.
• Participants independently identified key moments of good supervision post-procedure.
• Video-stimulated interviews and qualitative thematic analysis were used to explore perceptions and goals.

Main Results:

• The analysis identified 13 distinct supervisor behaviors and 6 underlying goals of good OR supervision.
• The strategies employed by surgical educators to achieve supervision goals are context-dependent.
• A direct, one-to-one correlation between specific supervision behaviors and underlying goals was not found.

Conclusions:

• Effective OR supervision is highly situational and must adapt throughout a surgical procedure.
• There is no universal template for effective OR supervision due to the variability of behaviors and goals.
• Supervision strategies need to be flexible and responsive to the evolving needs of surgical training.