Ten thousand steps and more. Drawing inspiration from the training of high-level athletes to support surgeons, this is the objective of the study entitled « TopSurgeons »conducted in Lyon by the laboratory Research on Healthcare Performance (Reshape, Inserm, Claude-Bernard-Lyon-I University and Hospices Civils de Lyon [HCL]). According to epidemiologist Antoine Duclos, principal investigator of the study, alongside surgeon Jean-Christophe Lifante, the project was born from the observation that “surgeons cannot maintain a high level of performance, and therefore last, if they are not happy in what they do. However, too high a workload or unsuitable exercise conditions can alter their form and prevent them from gaining enough perspective”. Must therefore “to rekindle desire, at a complicated time when the situation of the public hospital is tense, due in particular to the lack of personnel”continues the researcher.
Winner of funding from the European Research Council (ERC), the study aims to understand the influence of human and organizational factors on surgeon performance. His approach was detailed in the review Jama Surgery a March.
But what is it? During the first phase of the study, which took place in 2021, forty-five practicing surgeons, all practicing at the Hospices Civils de Lyon and aged between 34 and 67, were equipped with biometric sensors recording seven days a week. for a year their physical activity, their sleep and their stress. “We are starting to analyze this unique database to see to what extent these parameters are correlated with possible complications in patients”, specifies Antoine Duclos. For example, the practitioner’s heart rate variability is analyzed when he begins to incise the patient in the operating room.
Reduce complications
Second stage of this randomized study, the surgeons are divided into two groups: one benefits from a coaching program, like high-level athletes, while the other has no accompaniment. The data collected will then be compared with that of the hospitals relating to the follow-up of 16,000 patients, and any complications.
Each surgeon must identify their priorities and choose two improvement modules out of three – or even all three, if they wish: quality of sleep, stress management and physical activity, at the rate of one per quarter. and three hours of coaching per module, over a period of nine to twelve months. Advice is given to him according to his physiological measurements, in order to set up actions to improve them.
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