Surgical training during the COVID-19 pandemic at a designated 'cold' site: are we meeting the challenge?

There has been a marked reduction in surgical operative training opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic. This may be improved by the establishment of 'cold' sites for NHS elective surgery. We investigated the training opportunities at a newly designated elective surgery cold site in th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England 2022-06, Vol.104 (6), p.421-426
Main Authors: Hamid, M, Naumann, D N, Digne-Malcolm, H, Kanwal, A, Puventhiranathan, P, Phelan, L, Dilworth, M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Clinical outcomes
Cold
Colorectal Neoplasms
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
COVID-19 - prevention & control
Data collection
Elective surgery
Elective Surgical Procedures
Hospitals
Humans
Laparoscopy
Length of stay
Medical personnel
Pandemics
Patients
Regression analysis
Retrospective Studies
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Surgeons
Surgical anastomosis
Training
Urology
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Summary:There has been a marked reduction in surgical operative training opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic. This may be improved by the establishment of 'cold' sites for NHS elective surgery. We investigated the training opportunities at a newly designated elective surgery cold site in the West Midlands, UK. An observational retrospective study was undertaken to include all gastrointestinal and urological elective surgery at a single 'cold' site during the first peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Patient demographics, details of surgery and data relating to surgical training such as primary surgeon and portfolio index procedure were collected. Factors affecting the likelihood of trainees being the primary surgeon were analysed using logistic regression models. There were 880 patients, with a median (interquartile range) age of 62 (48-74). Some 658 (74.8%) procedures were defined as 'index procedures' for specialty training year 4 (ST4) level: 409/509 (80.4%) for urology, 155/235 (66%) for colorectal and 94/136 (69.1%) for upper gastrointestinal (GI). Only 253/880 (28.8%) procedures were performed by a trainee as the primary surgeon: 201/509 (39.4%) for urology, 21/235 (8.9%) for colorectal and 31/136 (22.8%) for upper GI. The likelihood of a trainee being the primary surgeon was reduced for major surgery (
ISSN:0035-8843
1478-7083
DOI:10.1308/rcsann.2021.0223