Background: Microsurgery is a specialized surgical technique with wide clinical application. The purpose of this study was to analyze case logs of graduating orthopedic surgery residents to assess trends in case volume for microsurgery procedures.
Methods: Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education case log reports were analyzed for microsurgery experience from 2007 to 2013. The mean number of adult, pediatric, and total microsurgery cases was noted. In addition, the median number of microsurgery procedures performed by the 90th, 50th, and 10th percentiles of residents (by case volume) was recorded. Temporal changes in case volume were calculated utilizing linear regression analyses.
Results: The proportion of microsurgery procedures increased significantly (1.3% to 2%; P = .024). The mean number of adult (24.5 to 41.9; P = .01), pediatric (1.9 to 3.4; P = .011), and total (26.3 to 45.3; P = .01) microsurgery procedures also increased significantly. Similarly, residents in both the 90th (63 to 109; P = .01) and 50th (10 to 21; P = .036) percentiles sustained significant increases in the median number of microsurgery procedures. No change was noted for residents in 10th percentile (0 to 0; P > .999). Graduating residents in the 90th percentile performed over 6 times more microsurgery procedures than residents in the 50th percentile.
Conclusions: Microsurgical caseload is increasing among graduating orthopedic residents. However, there is substantial variability in resident microsurgery case volume. Future investigations are needed to explore the educational implications of these findings and should seek to correlate microsurgical caseload with competency.
Keywords: caseload; education; microsurgery; resident; variation.