Intraoperative teamwork and workload among surgeons and surgical trainees during DIEP flap surgery

Two attending surgeons (surgeon at abdomen and surgeon at chest) and nine surgical trainees completed electronic surveys after deep inferior epigastric perforator (DIEP) flap surgical procedures. The survey included workload and teamwork subscales. The results indicated that DIEP flap surgery is a highly demanding surgical procedure both physically and cognitively. For the surgeon at abdomen, most of workload subscales were significantly higher than the paired trainees (p<0.05), while their teamwork subscales were not significantly different. The surgical trainees should know that the attending surgeon’s self-perceived workload could be higher than theirs even when their self-perceived teamwork is similar. For the surgeon at chest, most of teamwork subscales were significantly higher than the paired trainees (p<0.05), while their workload subscales were not significantly different. The attending surgeons should know that even when their self-evaluation of workload is similar to their trainees, the trainee’s evaluation of teamwork could be less than theirs.