Difference in perceptions of fundamental surgical skills for open head and neck surgery between young and expert surgeons: A multicenter questionnaire survey

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to visualize the difference in perceptions of fundamental surgical skills for open head and neck surgery between young and expert surgeons. Sixty fundamental surgical skills were verbalized and categorized into seven categories as an expert consensus in our prior study.
Methods: An anonymous questionnaire survey of young surgeons was conducted. The young surgeons were recruited from three universities and their affiliated hospitals. Expert surgeons’ responses in our prior study were used for a comparison.
Results: Sixty-nine young surgeons who were in the tenth postgraduate year or less answered the questionnaire. Overall, the young surgeons rated the importance of the surgical skills highly compared to the expert surgeons （P＝0.027）, whereas the expert surgeons considered that the categories of “counter traction” and “flow and planning” were important. The expert surgeons evaluated the category of “counter traction” as the most difficult skill. However, the young surgeons had the third highest confidence in their own skills out of the seven categories.
Conclusion: The results of this study suggested that young surgeons paid attention to a broader range of categories than expert surgeons. The perception of “counter traction” differed between the young and expert surgeons. These differences in perception of fundamental skills could be one of the issues hindering the transfer of skills in head and neck surgery.