Surgical manpower and practice patterns in a nonmetropolitan area. Nonmetropolitan surgical manpower

Surgical practice in a nonmetropolitan area was studied with a field survey of 33 general surgeons and family practitioners. Instruments included a physician interview and questionnaire, a nurse-receptionist questionnaire, a sample of 3,733 office patient records, and a sample of hospital operating room logbooks. The general surgeons reported spending an average of 22 hours a week seeing an average of 74 patients in their office practices. Twenty-six percent of the presenting problems and 32% of the principal diagnoses identified in the sample of general surgeons' office patient records were defined as primary care problems. Twenty-two percent of the problems and diagnoses were defined as specialty surgical problems, such as urological problems. An indication of patient referral was found in 2% of the records. In hospital practice the surgeons estimated spending an average of 14 hours a week in the operating room, and performed an average of seven to eight procedures a week. The mean California relative value (CRV) for each procedure was 10.0 CRV. The family physicians managed patients with a broad range of problems, including surgical, in their office practices, and performed an average of three operative procedures each week in the hospital.