In surgical operating rooms, where conflicts among the surgical team members can threaten patient safety, cooperation occurs more often when the gender of the attending surgeon differs from that of the majority of the team members, a study suggests. Inspired by studies of nonhuman primates, Laura K. Jones and colleagues observed 200 surgical procedures and documented more than 6,000 social interactions and nontechnical exchanges at three urban teaching hospitals in a single state in the United States between 2014 and 2016 using a specially developed "ethogram," a well-defined list of communications, including small talk and confrontation. The authors report that fewer than 3% of the interactions rose to the level of conflict, with four out of five conflicts directed from individuals higher in the hierarchy to those below. Further, conflict was more common when the gender-mix was tipped toward males. Additionally, for a male attending surgeon working with a mostly male team the chance of conflict was twice as high as when working with a mostly female team. The findings might help inform interventions designed to improve patient safety in surgical operating rooms, according to the authors.
Article #17-16883: "Ethological observations of social behavior in the operating room," by Laura K. Jones, Bonnie Jennings, Melinda Higgins, and Frans de Waal.
MEDIA CONTACT: Laura Jones, Emory University, Atlanta, GA; tel: 713-306-3008; e-mail: <lkjones@emory.edu>
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