Before the scalpel: surgical resident's preoperative preparatory strategies

Objective This study sought to increase understanding of preoperative preparatory strategies utilized by senior surgical residents and identify how social and material forces come together to shape practice. Summary / background data Preoperative preparation can play a powerful role in operative learning. Residents rarely receive guidance, feedback, or explicit expectations on how to prepare for the OR. Understanding current practice and how to support preoperative preparation represents an important gap in our efforts to improve surgical training. Methods Constructivist grounded theory with sensitizing concepts from sociomateriality guided data collection and analysis. Fifteen senior surgical residents from a range of surgical disciplines were purposefully sampled and participated in an in-depth individual interview. Two return-of-finding focus groups followed with seven residents. Rigor was enhanced through constant comparison, theoretical sampling, pursuit of discrepant data, and investigator triangulation. Results Residents utilized a range of strategies addressing four areas of focus: develop technical skills, improve procedural knowledge, enhance patient-specificity, and know surgical preferences. However, residents also described receiving limited guidance on what it means to "be prepared" and experience significant challenges in achieving preparedness. A mix of social and material things that enabled or constrained preparatory efforts influenced individual strategies. These included rotation structure, relationships, the OR list, and time. Conclusions Our findings offer possible solutions by elaborating on preparatory variability and considerations for residents, faculty, and programs to improve practice. As a first step, we suggest programs begin to engage in explicit dialogue and reflection with their residents, faculty, and residency program committees.