To reject trainee surgeon?

Presumably you do not have a child where the outcome if a mistake was made would be blindness?

YABU.

This isn't a first year med student being let loose with a scalpel for the first time, it's going to be a highly trained junior surgeon/ registrar under the close supervision of a consultant.

This is slightly different but in various situations including intimate examinations, patients are sometimes asked if they are happy with student drs (or whatever level they are at) watching.

You have a right to refuse.

Yabu and ridiculous. They have years of training and supervision. How do you expect them
to learn?

Most junior doctors are known as trainees - it doesn’t mean they’re not qualified. It means they’re not a consultant yet, but they could still have years of experience.

It’s also likely they’ll be supervised by a consultant anyway.

It’s ok to want a surgeon to do this who is experienced in this particular surgical procedure rather than someone who is training. You can request that, and you also have the option of having it done privately in which case you can choose your surgeon.

My mother had eye surgery recently and I found one the most highly respected and most experienced eye surgeons. He was amazing.

It’s important that you have complete confidence in your surgeon.

OP I think you have a very valid concern about the trainee surgeon. The rate and quality of success of medical operations is hugely influenced by the degree of experience a surgeon has in that particular surgery. It is completely valid to be concerned about having a surgeon, however highly qualified and experienced they are as a doctor, who has not performed many of the operations you (or your DC) are undergoing.

I'm surprised at the ignorance displayed on this thread about how acute the impact of experience in a particular operation is. Complex eye surgery more so than most. One thing to remember is that if your consultant is overseeing a trainee, they are likely one of the more experienced surgeons for this type of operation. Trainee surgeons who are being closely supervised normally have comparable outcomes to the experienced surgeons.

I agree with the posters that suggest you call the surgeon's office to talk about this. Ask about the experience of the trainee, which bits of the surgery they will be doing and to what extent the consultant will be overseeing them.

I’m guessing this procedure will need 2 stage consent, so you’ll have the opportunity to discuss it before it happens. My DD has needed repeated surgery on her ear, we have a good relationship with her consultant following years of hospital care and I’d feel unsettled if someone else did her surgery, for no reason other than I didn’t know them or their standard of care. I don’t think you’re unreasonable having concerns.

I hope you’re able to get some reassurance.

Any given individual must have the right to say they don't want it to be them, or their child, who gets practised on, though. Mistakes do get made, and statistically I'd have thought the likelihood would surely be a bit higher with trainees, so I feel it's very important that people have the right to refuse.

By operating on people who are happy to consent to them doing so.

That was absolutely NOT my intention, @snappyshopper. It was an attempt to reassure her and to be helpful.

Then how will the student ever progress?

An ophthalmologist is an eye surgeon

The rudeness on this thread to a concerned mother is absolutely mind blowing.

I also find it quite sinister looking at a few of the other posts at the bullying, ridiculing tone used. In my experience, it is very representative of the way we are conditioned to accept medical decisions made on our behalf and not question anything.

It may well be the case, that there is absolutely nothing to worry about, but this is absolutely a legitimate thing to want to discuss.

If the status of the surgeon’s experience is completely irrelevant, and no business of the patient’s parents, why was it even mentioned in the meeting?

I agree with you, for something so important as your child's sight.
I expect some on here will go into a frenzy demanding the NHS rookies get hands on practice 🤣

If you read the consent form for any operation, they always give you the worst case scenario.
Death is the worst case scenario for any operation, but you still sign the consent form don't you?
Want to find out if you're allergic to anaesthetic agent - have an operation! Not the best way to find out, but usually the only way

Just because you had a good outcome does not mean it's always the case.
Surely that's obvious?

The fact you didn't bat an eyelid is neither here nor there.
Maybe that was your personality or the fact you didn't register 'risk'.

It's not really relevant to the OP.

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius The OP being less anxious is not going to save her son's sight- you sound a bit patronising TBH.

It's not an op like having an appendix out where the worst scenario might be a big scar, or operating on a fracture.

This is clearly very delicate micro-surgery.

My son had complex facial surgery as a baby, it was carried out predominantly by a senior registrar with close supervision by a consultant - I didn't bat an eyelid at this. She did a fantastic job and how else is she meant to learn - by carrying it out for the first time on day one as a consultant with zero supervision? That would absolutely not be safe! YABU.

Everyone wants and deserves the very best surgeon for themselves, your son is no more special than anyone in that regard. But in order to become competent you have to learn. And learning under guidance of a more senior colleague is the process for that. If you trust the senior colleague than you have to trust they know that their ‘student’ is ready and capable of.

I think the issue here is that the 'outcome' is possible blindness. It's not as if there may be a bigger scar, or something fairly trivial like less than neat stitches, where the body will heal afterwards.

It's a child who could lose their sight. Every parents' nightmare.

you all need to try to show more empathy with the OP instead of picking her up on words she's using when the point is very obvious!

I think @Starwarsepisode3’s advice is good, @RunningThroughMyHead.

I used to be an operating theatre nurse - I did 8 weeks in the theatres at the Eye Hospital in Manchester, as part of my post basic theatre course, but don’t have a lot of specific experience of eye surgery, so what I am saying is more general.

As people have said, the surgeon who is learning this procedure, under the consultant’s supervision, will be a fully qualified doctor with experience in surgery - maybe years worth - following qualification, before they specialise - in this case, in ophthalmic surgery. They will be experienced and skilled in surgery, and will have done less complicated procedures, first supervised and eventually unsupervised. Basically they will have started with the easiest procedures, and worked their way up to more complex ones.

But you have every right to feel anxious about this - having a child undergo surgery is pretty scary, as I know from experience - and the letter clearly added to that anxiety.

As I say, I think the advice I’ve quoted above is good - you may feel better if you have more details, and answers to the things that are worrying you. There is evidence that shows that patients who have all the information they need, prior to surgery, show fewer markers of anxiety post op, recover more quickly, and lead less pain relief - and it makes sense to think that the more information you, as the mum, have, the less anxiety/stress you will have.

A good consultant will be happy to make sure you have the answers you need, and should try to set your mind at rest.

Finally, although it is a while since I worked, it is my understanding that the patient (or if the patient is under age, or cannot make the decision, their next of kin) can refuse to have a student perform a procedure on them, and I would assume this applies to trainees too. Since the consultant will have to be there, to supervise the trainee, requesting that the trainee does not perform all or part of the procedure won’t change the staffing in the theatre so I can’t see any practical reason why they should refuse that request, of the consultant can’t set your mind at ease.

DH is waiting for a hip replacement and has been able to choose the consultant. He wasn't happy with the first one as he didn't believe in minimally invasive surgery and requested to change to a consultant he'd seen privately on a previous occasion and is now on his NHS list.

How on earth is anyone supposed to reach the point of being an experienced consultant/ specialist, if everybody refused to allow trainees to practice their skills?

Hi OP, you're getting a bit of pasting here in some quarters but imo it's completely natural to be worried about your child having an operation and want the best for them. You've had good info already on the difference between a medical student and a doctor training to be an opthalmologist/ opthalmology surgeon (same difference / terms interchangeable). I'll just chip my two penworths in, I work in the medical negligence field (loosely) and since my day job involves dealing with all the horrible and distressing things that doctors get wrong, including surgery and opthalmology, plenty of things do give me the heeby jeebies should my family or I ever face them (I can tell you what they are but no need to scare you), but funnily enough while I can see why it would be worrying to a member of the general public, a planned, elective, day time operation involving a junior/training surgeon, even a very very junior CT1 or ST1 (lowest level where they'd be allowed to do any operating, 2 years post medical school), directly supervised by a consultant, isn't something I'd worry about. It's such a controlled, planned out and regulated environment when they're training the juniors, and there is plenty at stake for both doctors (particularly the trainee) and the second something is a bit unusual or not as they expect the consultant will step in. It's really rare in this context to see careless mistakes or the kind of errors that happen when a surgeon is on their own or in emergency or out of hours situations when people are rushed or stressed or operating on the edge of their competency or without the proper chance to prepare. Bear in mind too if it is a more junior/inexperienced surgeon they highly likely will just be doing the easy/low risk parts like the initial incision or closing, and they'll then observe or assist the consultant with the more delicate stages, which is a very different thing to being presented with the patient on the table and being told 'go' with no help start to finish. I'm hard pushed to think of a surgical incident that's happened with a properly supervised trainee in the last few years (and believe me like I say I do see plenty of all flavours of mistakes and incompetence generally) - never say never of course, strange things can happen but really OP I'm sure he'll be absolutely fine. Best of luck with it.

Your 'experienced' surgeon could be a very experienced arrogant lazy arse who thinks he knows it all after umpteen years at the coal face and now phones in his performance.

The trainee on the other hand is likely to be on his best behaviour and paying full attention, especially if he has an overseeing senior surgeon breathing down his neck.

Not suggesting a more experienced surgeon WOULD be like this. But tonnes of experience doesn't automatically mean better.

EDIT: And I've used male pronouns all the way through that post. Someone fetch the paddle! 😳