Changes in Procedure Times for Interventional Radiology Attendings Post-fellowship: What are the Learning Curves for...

Area of Science:

• Interventional Radiology
• Medical Education
• Procedure Efficiency

Background:

• Interventional Radiology (IR) attendings undergo extensive fellowship training.
• Quantifying the learning curve post-fellowship is crucial for understanding practice efficiency and training needs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantify changes in procedure times for interventional radiology (IR) attendings after fellowship.
• To analyze the learning curve for IR procedures over the first 12 years of practice.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 67,943 procedures performed by 24 IR attendings over 13 years.
• Creation of individual and aggregate learning curves using normalized procedure time (NPT).
• Comparison of procedure times at 1 year versus 6-12 years of practice using student's t-test.

Main Results:

• Significant reductions in procedure times observed for Sirsphere treatment, soft tissue ablation, mapping arteriogram, hepatic tumor embolization, bone marrow aspiration, nephrostomy exchange, and Pleurx catheter placement.
• The aggregate learning curve showed a substantial decrease in NPT during the first year (-5.3 mins/procedure/year) and a slower, steady decrease thereafter (-0.7 mins/procedure/year).

Conclusions:

• IR attendings exhibit the most significant procedural time reduction during their first year post-fellowship, particularly in locoregional cancer treatments.
• A biphasic learning curve characterizes the procedural efficiency of IR attendings during their initial 12 years of practice.