Best Surgeons Aged Between 30 And 50

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Main Category: Public Health
Also Included In: Medical Students / Training
Article Date: 11 Jan 2012 - 8:00 PST

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According to a study published on bmj.com, surgeons between the ages of 35 and 50 years provide the safest care compared with their younger or older colleagues, a finding, which raises concerns regarding surgeons' ongoing training and motivation during their careers.

Experts usually reach their peak performance between the ages of 30 and 50 years or when they have approximately 10 years' experience in their special field. However, few studies have measured the link between clinicians' experience and their performance.

Drs. Antoine Duclos and Jean-Christophe Lifante from the University of Lyon in France and his team decided to establish the connection between surgeons' experience and postoperative complications after thyroid surgery.

The researchers assessed 3,574 thyroidectomies (removal of the thyroid gland), performed by 28 surgeons aged 41 years, with an average work experience of 10 years, at five French hospitals. The study was over a one-year period, with researchers measuring two major complications of thyroid surgery; once 48 hours after surgery, and again at least six months after surgery.

The complications included permanent recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy, also known as severe hoarseness, and hypoparathyroidism, which is damage to the parathyroid glands that leads to low calcium levels, cramping, and twitching.

The researchers recorded all patients' background information and surveyed surgeons' background and professional experience. They adjusted surgical performance by the type and complexity of cases that were treated.

They discovered that patients who were operated on by inexperienced surgeons and those who have been in practice for 20 years or longer had a higher risk of permanent complications after thyroid surgery, whilst the chances of permanent complications increased considerably when thyroid surgery was performed by surgeons who practiced 20 years or longer. They established that those surgeons who had 5-20 years of practice since graduation, and were aged between 35 and 50 years, had better outcomes compared with their younger or older colleagues.



The researchers highlight that further research is required to explore variations in complication rates that may have occurred because of unknown or unmeasured factors. They state the findings indicate that surgeons' performance varies throughout their career, and that surgeons' are unable to achieve or maintain top performance if they gather experience passively. This raises concerns about surgeons' ongoing training and motivation throughout their entire life-long career.

Written by Petra Rattue
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

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