Resident Involvement in Arthroscopic Knee Surgery Is Not Associated With Increased Short-term Risk to Patients

Abstract

Background: Whether resident involvement in surgical procedures affects intra- and/or postoperative outcomes is controversial. Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of this study was to compare operative time, adverse events, and readmission rate for arthroscopic knee surgery cases with and without resident involvement. We hypothesized that resident involvement would not negatively affect these variables. Study Design: Cohort study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods: A retrospective review of the prospectively maintained National Surgical Quality Improvement Program was performed. Patients who underwent arthroscopic knee surgery between 2005 and 2012 were identified. Multivariate Poisson regression with robust error variance was used to compare the rates of postoperative adverse events and readmission within 30 days between cases with and without resident involvement. Multivariate linear regression was used to compare operative time between cohorts. Because of multiple statistical comparisons, a Bonferroni correction was used, and statistical significance was set at P