Pancreatic surgery is a safe teaching model for tutoring residents in the setting of a high-volume academic hospital: a retrospective analysis of surgical and pathological outcomes

Academic hospitals must train future surgeons, but whether residents could negatively affect the outcomes of major procedures is a matter of concern. The aim of this study is to assess if pancreatic surgery is a safe teaching model. Outcomes of 1230 major pancreatic resections performed at a high-volume pancreatic teaching hospital between 2015 and 2018 were compared according to the first surgeon type, attending vs resident. Residents performed a selection of 132 (16%) pancreaticoduodenectomies (PD) and 46 (11%) distal pancreatectomies (DP). For PD, pancreatic fistula (25% vs 0, p