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P8: Plenary Session 8

RS32 - Barriers and facilitators of trainee wellness as encountered by vascular surgery program directors

Saturday, June 7, 2025
12:07 PM – 12:14 PM CT
Location: Morial CC, Second Floor, Room 208-210
Objectives: Surgical training has received significant attention in recent years with efforts to improve trainee wellness. Vascular surgery training is subject to unique challenges, and vascular program directors (PDs) are tasked with providing learning environments that produce effective and competent surgeons in an abbreviated timeline. The aim of this study is to identify positive and negative facilitators of vascular program wellness as recognized by PDs.

Methods: Data was collected from confidential, voluntary surveys of vascular surgery residency PDs with multiple choice and free response questions as part of the SECOND Trial. PDs were asked about their use of wellness interventions, resources available through their institution, and resources still required. PDs indicated the most rewarding and challenging aspects of their role. Associations between program burnout and resources that PDs had or needed were assessed with Fisher’s exact test. Qualitative data was analyzed with inductive reasoning to identify themes.

Results: There were 34 program directors who participated in the survey (79.1% of programs enrolled in the Vascular SECOND Trial, 45.9% of accredited U.S. vascular surgery residencies). PDs endorsed having opportunities to engage with other faculty (N=28, 82.3%), support from Graduate Medical Education (N=28, 82.3%), and administrative support from program coordinators (N=27, 79.4%). Most PDs reported a need for additional salary/stipend support to incentivize program leadership (N=23, 67.6%), funded protected effort to free up clinical responsibilities (N=18, 52.9%), and discretionary educational funds (N=14, 41.2%). The trainee-related issues most frequently encountered by PDs were trainee performance challenges (N=15, 44%) and interpersonal issues between trainees and ancillary staff (N=10, 29%). The issues most frequently encountered at the institutional level were incongruence between hospital administration goals and clinical priorities (N=10, 29%), and protected time for administrative responsibilities (N=8, 24%). There were no significant associations between trainee burnout or perception of program responsiveness and resources needed or available to PDs. The themes of the most rewarding aspects of the PD job were training new vascular surgeons and cultivating relationships with trainees. The themes for most challenging aspects were generational differences in communication, lack of funding and time, and administrative tasks.

Conclusions: Vascular surgery PDs assume a challenging role with unique responsibilities. Certain barriers and facilitators of wellness may be inherent to training programs, such as interpersonal conflicts or generational differences. However, the support of PD efforts as provided by faculty, surgery departments, and hospital systems alike should focus on improving resources like funded protected efforts and reducing administrative burden.