logging cases question

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boston

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i should probably know this by now, but...

when you are on burn, but cover a general surgery case, on the acgme site, do you log that under "burn" or "general surgery"...
 
i should probably know this by now, but...

when you are on burn, but cover a general surgery case, on the acgme site, do you log that under "burn" or "general surgery"...

Cases are not logged based on which rotation you are on, but by CPT code. Therefore, a general surgery case is logged as that under the appropriate category (ie, abdominal, laparoscopic, adv laparoscopic, etc.).
 
Hi Kim, I have been logging cases using the appropriate CPT codes, but there also is a drop-down field called "Rotation" where you can select things like, "Burn, Cardiac Surgery, General Surgery, Research, etc." Maybe this is a new field they added since you graduated?

I have been trying to retrospectively log in 3 months worth of cases that I have on little cards (the ones that come with your sterile gown).

My guess is that now that I am in the lab if I cover a service like Thoracic for a day, I should select "Research" But then, what happens when you are on a particular service like Burn and are asked to cover a case on another service like General Surgery?

Any ideas?
 
Hi Kim, I have been logging cases using the appropriate CPT codes, but there also is a drop-down field called "Rotation" where you can select things like, "Burn, Cardiac Surgery, General Surgery, Research, etc." Maybe this is a new field they added since you graduated?

I have been trying to retrospectively log in 3 months worth of cases that I have on little cards (the ones that come with your sterile gown).

My guess is that now that I am in the lab if I cover a service like Thoracic for a day, I should select "Research" But then, what happens when you are on a particular service like Burn and are asked to cover a case on another service like General Surgery?

Any ideas?

That is new to me. Perhaps they are trying to correlate your cases with your rotations. So it might be better to code them under whatever rotation you are currently on, since it does state "Rotation" as the category.

When we printed out all my cases at the end of my residency, there was only codes for attending surgeon, PGY level, date and of course, case type. There was nowhere for it to be coded as rotation.

I would ask your program coordinator - as they are usually up on these kind of things.
 
As far as I know, you log your case citing the rotation you were on when you did it. We do off service cases, and I list the current rotation, and the case I did. That's what I do, so I hope it's correct...😕
 
As far as I know, you log your case citing the rotation you were on when you did it. We do off service cases, and I list the current rotation, and the case I did. That's what I do, so I hope it's correct...😕

Tig, what you are saying makes sense, the more I think about it. Since they already have the CPT code and what type of case it is, they probably want to be able to analyze when we are getting numbers for specific categories. I.e. are we covering a lot of off-service cases on a particular rotation...
 
I have been logging my cases under the rotation I was covering for. Know one ever really told us how to log cases. Still not 100% sure when I should log surgeon junior, chief, first assist ect.
 
I have been logging my cases under the rotation I was covering for. Know one ever really told us how to log cases. Still not 100% sure when I should log surgeon junior, chief, first assist ect.

Chief cases only count during your Chief (final) year - even if you serve as service Chief during your 4th year, those do not count as "Chief" cases.

Surgeon Junior - I always figured and was told that if you performed 50% or more of the case you could log it as Surgeon Junior.

First Assist - you can log them, but they won't count toward your total for ACS. First assist is when you can't say you did 50% of the case, or there is someone more senior to you assisting who will log as Chief or Surgeon junior,

Programs never tell you about this stuff.
 
Chief cases only count during your Chief (final) year - even if you serve as service Chief during your 4th year, those do not count as "Chief" cases.

Surgeon Junior - I always figured and was told that if you performed 50% or more of the case you could log it as Surgeon Junior.

First Assist - you can log them, but they won't count toward your total for ACS. First assist is when you can't say you did 50% of the case, or there is someone more senior to you assisting who will log as Chief or Surgeon junior,

Programs never tell you about this stuff.


From what my 4th year told me, if you are scrubbing with your chief and you do more than 50% of the case then you can log it as surgeon junior. Is it true or is what Dr. Cox mentioned above true?
 
In general, if you do more than 50% of the case, I'd log it under "Surgeon Junior."
 
Only one resident can log a case as "Surgeon (blank)". The chief vs junior only reflects the level of training- fourth/fifth years are "chief" (at least at my institution) and junior level residents (pgy1-3) are "junior". This allows the acgme site to track how many cases you do in your chief years- what is it? 200 majors required for your chief years to be board eligible?

Side note- it is important to log the cases you do as first assistant because when you apply for staff privileges at a hospital after residency there is no difference to hospitals between "surgeon" and "first assist". The side discussion is should a surgeon be performing operations he has only "first-assisted"...

Hope this helps
 
From what my 4th year told me, if you are scrubbing with your chief and you do more than 50% of the case then you can log it as surgeon junior. Is it true or is what Dr. Cox mentioned above true?

Well, the situation you've described is exactly how I defined it above:

The Chief resident will categorize himself as Surgeon Chief, you will categorize the case as Surgeon Junior.
 
Only one resident can log a case as "Surgeon (blank)". The chief vs junior only reflects the level of training- fourth/fifth years are "chief" (at least at my institution) and junior level residents (pgy1-3) are "junior". This allows the acgme site to track how many cases you do in your chief years- what is it? 200 majors required for your chief years to be board eligible?

150 cases during the Chief year
 
there is a requirement to put case IDs as well when logging cases at acgme website. I am at the VA right now, so use the case ID written in surgery report section of cprs. Is that right?

Also what case ID do I use for procedures not in OR eg lines, as these dont get assigned a case ID in the CPRS system at VA
 
I always use either their MR number (most hospitals) or their SSN (at the VA).

If you're using CPRS, it's at the top left, under their name.
 
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