Surgeons regularly make changes in their practice to ensure they are providing high quality patient care. This includes the process of learning and safely integrating new skills, techniques and technologies into practice. When faced with the challenge of integrating a new surgical procedure into practice, surgeons must determine when they are ready to overcome the associated risks. This study sought to understand how surgeons experience risk when learning and integrating a new procedure into practice.
A modified constructivist, grounded theory approach was utilized. Eighteen surgeons were purposively sampled from two Canadian academic medical institutions. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and interpreted through constant comparative analysis. Emergent themes were identified and a conceptual framework was developed for understanding the surgeon experience associated with adopting and integrating a new procedure into practice.
Regardless of personal risk tolerance, surgeons described a similar approach to learning and implementing new skills. The experience of risk was one of several factors that affected their adoption of new techniques. They also described being influenced by individual, personality-driven factors, logistical considerations and the culture inherent to their departmental, institutional, professional and societal contexts.
A framework for understanding the surgeon experience when adopting and integrating new skills was constructed. The complex, nuanced multifactorial interplay between a surgeon’s individual willingness to engage risk, his/her motivations and the systemic and cultural factors that serve to facilitate or hinder the implementation of a new surgical skill is at the core of this experience. An increased awareness of these factors highlights the challenges that surgeon face in adopting new procedures and may lead to the development of policies which support surgeons learning and implementing new skills, techniques and technologies while maximizing patient safety.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/37023 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Seth, Akshay |
| Contributors | Wood, Timothy |
| Publisher | Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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