DOES A TEACHING PROGRAM IN DAY SURGERY IMPACT ON EFFICIENCY AND QUALITY OF CARE

Background: Recent medical advances have led to an explosion in the us e of day surgery, making traditional teaching untenable and necessitat ing a transfer of undergraduate teaching programmes into the day surge ry setting. Concerns have been raised about the impact of teaching on efficiency and quality of care in this environment. Methods: Thirty-on e final year medical students participated in a new teaching programme conducted in a dedicated day surgery unit in a major Australian publi c teaching hospital. Five commonly performed procedures were audited a nd analysed by a mixed model analysis of variance to determine whether students impacted significantly on operation time. Student performanc e was monitored using a logbook. Surgeons and nursing staff completed questionnaires about their perceptions of the impact of the programme on the overall efficiency of the day surgery unit. Results: Students h ad no significant effect on operation time for the procedures examined . Staff did not perceive that students had significantly detracted fro m the overall efficiency of the unit. An unexpected finding was the su bstantial contribution that students made to quality of patient care. Conclusions: A successful undergraduate medical teaching programme can be conducted in a day surgery setting without compromising efficiency and quality of care.