Er. Crouch, A COMPARISON OF THE SUCCESS RATES OF RESIDENT AND ATTENDING STRABISMUS SURGERY - DISCUSSION, Journal of pediatric ophthalmology and strabismus, 30(3), 1993, pp. 157-158
Residency training involves surgery by resident surgeons at various le
vels of experience and proficiency, supervised by an experienced atten
ding physician. We reviewed the results of strabismus surgery performe
d at four institutions with two residency training programs. Five hund
red twenty-two cases with follow up greater than 6 weeks were evaluate
d. These cases included 315 attending procedures and 207 resident proc
edures under direct attending supervision. Success was defined as a st
rabismic deviation of 8 prism diopters or less. Average postoperative
follow up was 57 weeks and did not differ between groups. There was no
statistical difference between the resident success rate of 58% (121/
207) and the attending success rate of 69% (217/315) after adjusting f
or population differences. The average final deviation of the patients
postoperatively was 7 A for the attending group and 10 DELTA for the
resident group. Amblyopia was significantly more frequent in the resid
ent cases (P < .001). Adjustable sutures were used significantly more
often in attending cases (P < .0001). This study supports the premise
that resident strabismus surgery is as successful as attending surgery
. (Abstract reproduced from Wisnicki HJ, Repka MX, Raab E, et al. A co
mparison of the success rates of resident and attending strabismus sur
gery.