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 Every July 1, newly graduated medical students start their first
year of training as surgeons, and older surgical trainees are
promoted to take on new responsibilities.
“Multiple studies have shown that obtaining care at academic medical
centers in July is just as safe as any other month of the year,” Dr.
Cornelius Thiels of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota told
Reuters Health by email.
But how do patients feel about the process?
"We wanted to ensure that patients were not only having the best
outcomes during this yearly time of transition but also having the
best experience with their care,” Thiels said.
He and his colleagues surveyed 10,822 patients having various kinds
of surgeries in 2013 or 2014, including 1,674 (15 percent) who were
admitted to the hospital in July or August.
Overall patient quality wasn’t lower during these times. In fact,
“surgical patients had equal, and by some measures improved,
perceptions of their care” in July and August, the authors reported.
The researchers tallied patients' responses to come up with an
overall score, plus subscores for communication with physicians,
pain management and communication about medicines, care transition
and discharge information.
The global score and all subscores were similar between patients
admitted in July or August compared with those admitted in any other
month, the study team found.
They did see some seasonal variations, with better scores in July
and August than in September/October or January/February.
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Dr. Karl Bilimoria of Northwestern University in Chicago, who has
studied the effect of surgical residents on patients but wasn’t
involved in the new research, told Reuters Health that in July and
August, there may be more vigilance and extra staffing to make sure
surgical residents receive supervision and patients receive the best
care.
He’s not sure, however, that the new results reflect teaching
hospitals everywhere. “The survey only looks at a single institution
and it’s the Mayo Clinic,” one of the best hospitals in the country,
he said.
Patients who seek care at this hospital are highly motivated and
will travel great distances to get there, he said – which means that
how patients view care at the Mayo Clinic may not be the same as how
they’d view care at a hospital in their neighborhood.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1PhNTpq JAMA Surgery, online June 1, 2016.
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