Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Who works better?

In his book complications Dr Gawande mentions about a study where learning curve of various groups consisting of different surgeons and surgical teams were studied.It was found that after learning this new operation all these surgeons initially took around 6 hours to perform.Later on one group which had least complication and worked fastest took 3 hrs and the group of surgeons which took the longest was taking 6 hours.To utter surprise it was found the group which took less time was headed by a young surgeon but he worked with same team every time and they revised all the steps before surgery.
While the group which took longest had senior surgeon as the head who was no less efficient but was working with different set of doctors every time who weren't so well coordinated and thus the difference.
So the take home message I got was a well coordinated team work is needed for high end and high risk Surgeries where the stakes are very high as far as patients safety is a issue.

1 comment:

Dyslexicon said...

It's probably most difficult to put a good team together in medicine - while it's more important & critical. Doctors are all trained to work like islands.

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