What is the Value of a Burn Surgery Rotation in Surgical Residency?

Abstract

Declining case volumes on trauma rotations and early specialization of traditional surgical rotations have limited the service lines on which general surgery residents can obtain critical operative and management experience. Meanwhile, a significant portion of residents have no exposure to a burn rotation during their training. A burn rotation may address both of these issues in a meaningful way. Surgical case volumes and burn ICU patient volume were queried for an urban regional verified burn referral center. General surgery program resident case logs were queried for procedures performed during a burn rotation during that same time period. Over a four-year time period, three burn surgeons performed a total of 2374 procedures on burn and wound service patients. In the burn ICU over that same time period, 419 individual critical care patients were managed. Twenty-seven general surgery program residents logged 632 major operations and 67 critical care patients; more than 50 per cent of cases performed were not captured by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education case log system. A high volume burn service can adequately provide surgical and critical care exposure to junior surgical residents. Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education surgical case logs may not fully represent the full scope of exposure sustained on a high-volume burn service.