In this New York Times article, Dr. Pauline Chen, M. D. notes that patients and their families are often wary of having interns in their loved ones’ operating rooms. A common attitude, she writes, runs along the lines of, “It’s not that I don’t like these young doctors. I just don’t want one practicing on my husband.”

As Dr. Chen further notes, “I’ve never developed an adequate response. A part of me understands these concerns. As talented and as earnest as residents can be, it’s true that they are still learning to operate. At the same time, I’m also fully aware that I am the doctor I am because other patients once allowed me to participate in their operations and care.”

So how well-founded are such concerns? In March the Journal of the American College of Surgeons published the results of a study on how well patients come through when a surgeon-in-training is involved in the operation. Analyzing the results of more than 600,000 operations at more than 225 hospitals across the country, researchers found that:

• resident involvement was indeed associated with slightly higher complication rates and longer operating times
• those complications were not necessarily serious
• patients who had trainees participating in their operations also experienced decreased mortality rates
• once one complication occurred, those patients with residents involved in their care were more likely to recover and less likely to fall prey to the so-called domino effect of complications, where one leads to another and ultimately to death

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