Team working to improve outcome in vestibular schwannoma surgery

The concept of the 'learning curve' in the early years of consultant appointment is no longer acceptable and yet, for most complex operations, learning is a career-long process. Sub-specialization offers part of the solution to this problem by concentrating expertise, but there remains the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:British journal of neurosurgery 2005-04, Vol.19 (2), p.122-127
Main Authors: Sharp, MC, MacFarlane, R, Hardy, DG, Jones, SEM, Baguley, DM, Moffat, DA
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic neuroma
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Biological and medical sciences
Clinical Competence - standards
Clinical outcomes
Cohort Studies
Ear, auditive nerve, cochleovestibular tract, facial nerve: diseases, semeiology
Education, Medical
Education, Medical, Graduate - methods
Female
Humans
learning curve
Male
Medical sciences
mentoring
Mentors
Middle Aged
Neurology
Neuroma, Acoustic - surgery
Neurosurgery
Occupational training
Otolaryngology - education
Otologic Surgical Procedures - methods
Otorhinolaryngology. Stomatology
Specialization
Surgeons
Surgery (general aspects). Transplantations, organ and tissue grafts. Graft diseases
translabyrinthine approach
Tumors
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Summary:The concept of the 'learning curve' in the early years of consultant appointment is no longer acceptable and yet, for most complex operations, learning is a career-long process. Sub-specialization offers part of the solution to this problem by concentrating expertise, but there remains the question of how to introduce new team members without adversely affecting patient outcome. Shortened training and an increasingly aware public, who are more questioning of the experience and outcomes of those treating them, has required the surgical profession to move away from individual consultant practice and embrace team-working. When, in 1997, a second neurosurgeon joined the skull base team at Addenbrooke's Hospital, his introduction to acoustic neuroma surgery was mentored and operative cases were carefully selected at first. In this article, we discuss our experience with consultant mentoring, and compare the results of the first 100 translabyrinthine acoustic neuroma operations performed under this system with the first cohort of a similar number of patients published from Cambridge in 1989.
ISSN:0268-8697
1360-046X
DOI:10.1080/02688690500145480