Virtual Surgical Grand Rounds Allow Greater Multidisciplinary and Interprofessional Education and Collaboration

Over the past few years, Surgical Grand Rounds across the country have been overwhelmingly transitioned from in-person to a virtual or hybrid format. This has been shown to have improved attendance, allowed for greater geographical diversity of speakers and learners, and led to less disruption of clinical duties. At our institution we have used the opportunity to embrace more multidisciplinary and interprofessional involvement by opening sessions to include all members of our surgical specialties, anesthesiology, and palliative care teams. This survey aimed to assess the utility of the virtual format to facilitating this collaboration.

A survey was developed using interviews with surgical attending, nurses, and physician assistants (PAs) and validated using a pilot group of 5 surgical attending, nurses, and PAs to ensure clarity, relevance, and comprehensiveness. In total, it was distributed to 264 attendees, including surgical attending, residents/fellows, PAs, medical students, nurses, and administrative assistants. We received 123 responses (46.6%) which included multiple choice, a 5-point Likert scale as well as open ended responses.

Overall, attendees rated virtual grand rounds as superior to in-person in terms of audience diversity (94.31%), convenience of attending (99.18%), diversity of speakers (93.5%), and opportunities for inter-professional education (78.86%). They rated in-person as superior in only audience engagement (74.80%) and networking and collegiality (88.64%). They rated either "agree" or "strongly agree" to the statements that presenters were from different health professions and specialties (97.56%), geographic locations (97.57%), different institutions (97.57%), and different genders and racial backgrounds (97.56%). They overwhelmingly agreed that the interprofessional format of the grand rounds facilitates connections that improve interprofessional collaboration in daily practice (94.3%).

Virtual and hybrid formats for grand rounds can allow for increased diversity of speakers in terms of discipline, geographic location, institution, gender, and race. It can also allow for increased multidisciplinary and interprofessional inclusion, which can expand to greater collaboration outside of grand rounds. Further interventions are necessary to improve networking and collegiality in this virtual format.