Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
BMC Med Educ. 2022 Feb 26;22(1):130. doi: 10.1186/s12909-022-03196-y.
Medical trainees' negative perceptions towards older adult care have been widely reported, catalyzing targeted curricula in geriatric medicine. Little is known about surgical residents' attitudes toward and perceptions of the educational value of caring for injured older adults. This information is needed to ensure the surgical workforce is adequately trained to care for this growing patient population. In this study, we assessed surgical trainees' attitudes towards geriatric trauma care to inform a curriculum in geriatric trauma.
We surveyed North American general surgery trainees' beliefs and attitudes toward caring for older trauma patients, and the educational value they ascribed to learning about older trauma patient care. Descriptive statistics were used to report participant characteristics and responses.
Three hundred general surgery trainees from 94 post-graduate programs responded. Respondents reported too much time co-ordinating care (56%), managing non-operative patients (56%), and discharge planning (65%), all activities important to the care of older trauma patients. They recognized the importance of geriatric trauma care for their future careers (52%) but were least interested in reading about managing geriatric trauma patients (28%). When asked to rank clinical vignettes by educational value, respondents ranked the case of an older adult as least interesting (74%). As respondents progressed through their training, they reported less interest in geriatric trauma care.
Our survey results demonstrate the generally negative attitudes and beliefs held by postgraduate surgical trainees towards the care of older adult trauma patients. Future work should focus on identifying specific changes to the postgraduate surgical curriculum which can effectively alter these attitudes and beliefs and improve the care for injured older adults.
医学受训者对老年护理的负面看法已被广泛报道，这促使老年医学领域开展了针对性课程。然而，关于外科住院医师对老年创伤患者护理的态度和对其教育价值的看法知之甚少。为了确保外科劳动力能够充分培训以照顾这一不断增长的患者群体，我们需要了解这些信息。在这项研究中，我们评估了外科住院医师对老年创伤护理的态度，以为老年创伤课程提供信息。
我们调查了北美普通外科住院医师对照顾老年创伤患者的信念和态度，以及他们对学习老年创伤患者护理的教育价值的评价。使用描述性统计方法报告参与者的特征和反应。
来自 94 个研究生项目的 300 名普通外科住院医师做出了回应。受访者报告说，他们在协调护理方面花费了太多时间（56%）、管理非手术患者（56%）和出院计划（65%），这些都是照顾老年创伤患者的重要活动。他们认识到老年创伤护理对其未来职业的重要性（52%），但对阅读有关管理老年创伤患者的内容最不感兴趣（28%）。当被要求按教育价值对临床病例进行排名时，受访者将老年患者的病例排在最不感兴趣的位置（74%）。随着住院医师培训的进展，他们对老年创伤护理的兴趣降低。
我们的调查结果表明，研究生外科住院医师普遍对老年创伤患者的护理持负面态度和信念。未来的工作应重点关注对研究生外科课程进行具体改革，以有效改变这些态度和信念，并改善对受伤老年患者的护理。
