No residents in my OR

[jdm51]

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So I show up at the cosmetic surgery center and my staff tells me that his patient doesn't want any residents involved with her case. He empathizes, apologizes and suggests I spend the day with one of the private guys. No big deal to me.

The first guy I asked, though, says "sorry I don't work with residents." I don't get it. What's wrong with just watching? The patient doesn't have to know I'm there- and I know that half the people in the OR haven't introduced themselves.

This guy was the beneficiary of a plastic surgery training program at some point - I just don't understand the rationale for categorically not allowing residents in the room. If any private practice guys out there can just explain this to me I might feel better.

Instead I did some hammertoes with a podiatrist, which was actually pretty cool.

 

[plasticresident]

I'm also a resident and agree with you. In my program if an attending doesn't want a resident in the room, he can take care of his own patients on the floor and should not be involved with a teaching institution. The reason they may not want a resident in the room has to do with the fact that patients are afraid the resident will do the case. If all attendings thought along those lines, noone would be trained and there would be no more surgeons.

 

[SocialistMD]

Our attendings tell their patients that they are at an academic center and that residents will be in the case and if they don't like that, they can go to another hospital. It is probably different if you are at community hospitals working with surgeons who are adjunct faculty, but I agree that they shouldn't be working in academics if they have that attitude.

 

[MacGyver]

Our attendings tell their patients that they are at an academic center and that residents will be in the case and if they don't like that, they can go to another hospital. It is probably different if you are at community hospitals working with surgeons who are adjunct faculty, but I agree that they shouldn't be working in academics if they have that attitude.

I agree with you thats the way things should be done. However, in plastics the power dynamic is a little different because plastics is more of a "consumer driven " industry than other surgical subspecialties, therefore plastics defers to unreasonable patient demands more often.