American journal of surgery
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Surgical resident supervision in the operating room and outcomes of care in Veterans Affairs hospitals.
There has been concern that a reduced level of surgical resident supervision in the operating room (OR) is correlated with worse patient outcomes. Until September 2004, Veterans' Affairs (VA) hospitals entered in the surgical record level 3 supervision on every surgical case when the attending physician was available but not physically present in the OR or the OR suite. In this study, we assessed the impact of level 3 on risk-adjusted morbidity and mortality in the VA system. ⋯ Between 1998 and 2004, the level of resident supervision in the OR did not affect clinical outcomes adversely for surgical patients in the VA teaching hospitals.