Patient Perspectives on the Participation of Neurosurgery Resident Physicians in Their Care

Abstract

Introduction Surgical residents play vital roles in day-today patient care as well as in the operating room. However, there is a paucity of literature regarding patients' perspectives on neurosurgical residents and their participation in their care. This current study investigates the knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs of patients regarding neurosurgical residents and their involvement in their healthcare process. Methods Patients older than 18 years who had undergone brain or spine surgery were requested to complete a survey questionnaire. The 7-point Likert scale response ranging from "strongly agree", "agree", "more or less agree", "undecided", more or less disagree", "disagree" to "strongly disagree" was used. The primary objective was to assess patient understanding and attitudes towards resident participation in surgical and medical care within the specialty of neurosurgery. The duration of the study was eight months. Patients having prior exposure to an informed-consent procedure by a neurosurgery team within a year prior to this study were excluded. Data were analyzed using Student's t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and standard averaging of responses.

Patient perceptions of surgical training in the private sector in South Africa - a single centre survey

“…Notably, international studies of private settings have found that paying patients are firmly in favour of trainee involvement in surgery, and feel that surgical training should take place in the private sector worldwide. [23][24][25][26] Across these studies, up to 90-97% of respondents thought that training should occur in private hospitals and up to 85.7-88% of private patients were willing to allow a supervised trainee to perform part of their operation. These findings are highly relevant, as patients often seek care in the private sector hoping to access the expertise of a specific specialist or medical team, and there may be the assumption that said specialist will perform all requisite surgical procedures in their entirety.…”

“…These findings are highly relevant, as patients often seek care in the private sector hoping to access the expertise of a specific specialist or medical team, and there may be the assumption that said specialist will perform all requisite surgical procedures in their entirety. [23][24][25][26]…”

“…Questionnaires were completely anonymous and no identifying information was collected. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 26.…”