Doctor-patient communication in surgery: Attitudes and expectations of general surgery patients about the involvement and education of surgical residents

BACKGROUND: Education is a major function of academic medical centers. At t hese reaching institutions residents provide a substantial amount of care o n medical and surgical services. The attitudes of patients about the traini ng of surgical residents and the impact of residents on patients' perceptio ns of care in a surgical setting are unknown. STUDY DESIGN: Patients admitted to the gastrointestinal surgery service com pleted a 30-item survey designed for this study. Patients included in the s tudy underwent operations and had a postoperative inpatient hospital stay. We analyzed patients' answers to determine frequency and correlations among answers. RESULTS: Two hundred patients participated in the study during a 7-month pe riod between July 1999 and January 2000. A majority of patients were comfor table having residents involved in their care (86%) and felt it was importa nt to help educate future surgeons (91%). Most did not feel inconvenienced by being at a teaching hospital (71%) and felt they received extra attentio n there (74%). Patients were more willing to participate in resident educat ion if they expected to have several physicians involved in their care, fel t that they received extra attention, or if the teaching atmosphere did not inconvenience them. Despite the stated willingness of patients to help wit h surgical resident education, 32% answered that they would not want reside nts doing any of their operation. CONCLUSIONS: Surgical resident education is well received and considered im portant by patients. Patient orientation to the resident education process is vital to patients' perceptions of care and may render patients more will ing to participate in educational activities. (J Am Coll Surg 2001;193: 73- 80. (C) 2001 by the American College of Surgeons).