Do new thoracic surgeons feel ready to operate? Self-reported comfort level of thoracic surgery trainees and junior thoracic surgeons with core thoracic surgery procedures.

Objective: To evaluate and compare self-reported surgical experience and comfort levels of Canadian thoracic surgery trainees and junior thoracic surgeons (<5 years in practice) with respect to core thoracic surgery procedures.

Methods: A modified Delphi process was used to create a survey that was distributed electronically to all Canadian thoracic surgery residents and newly graduated thoracic surgeons. A descriptive summary, including calculation of frequencies, means, proportions, and standard deviations was conducted. Associations between reported experience and comfort level for residents and surgeons were explored separately using the Pearson product moment correlation. The differences between resident and junior surgeons' rating of experience and comfort for each procedure were explored using Fisher exact tests.

Results: The response rates were 50% for residents and 85% for staff. Adequate or better experience was reported by residents for 9 of 18 core thoracic surgical procedures and by staff for 10 of 18 procedures. A significant difference in self-reported experience level was found between groups for only 1 of 18 procedures. Staff reported that they would confidently perform 7 of 18 procedures independently at the end of their training. The mean resident response did not reach this level of comfort for any of the 18 procedures. Eight of 16 staff had completed extra training, primarily for personal interest, whereas 4 of 6 residents were planning on further training because of job market factors.

Discussion: The results of this study help to characterize the comfort levels of thoracic trainees and new attending thoracic surgeons with core thoracic procedures and might assist training programs in identifying and improving areas of weakness.