Design and Impact of a Novel Surgery-Specific Second Victim Peer Support Program.

Background: Surgeons are prone to feelings of sadness, guilt, and anxiety when involved in major adverse events. We aimed to create and evaluate a second victim peer support program for surgeons and surgical trainees.

Study Design: The second victim peer support program was an intervention performed in the Department of Surgery at a tertiary care academic medical center. Surgical attendings and trainees participated as peer supporters or affected peers. In this article, we describe the design of the program and its 1-year impact, which was evaluated through the number of interventions attempted and realized and feedback received from all participants using an anonymous qualitative and quantitative survey.

Results: The program was established using the following 5 steps: creation of a conceptual framework, choice of peer supporters, training of peer supporters, multifaceted identification of major adverse events, and design of a systematic intervention plan. In 1 year, the program had 47 interventions distributed evenly between attendings and trainees; 19% of affected peers opted out of receiving support. Most participants expressed satisfaction with the program's confidentiality, the safe/trusting environment it provided, and the timeliness of the intervention (89%, 73%, and 83%, respectively); 81% suggested that the program had a positive impact on the department's "safety and support" culture and would recommend the program to a colleague. Several areas for improvement were identified, including the need to improve identification of events requiring outreach, and the desire for increased awareness of the program throughout the department.

Conclusions: We successfully designed, implemented, and assessed the impact of the first surgery-specific peer support program in the US. Our 1-year experience suggests that the program is highly used and well received, albeit with opportunities for improvement.