Third Trial - Overview

Poor well-being threatens the health, productivity, and longevity of the surgeon workforce. For many surgeons, well-being lives in tandem with experiences of workplace stress and professional dissatisfaction. We believe lack of a supportive environment drives the persistent challenges in workforce stability in U.S. departments of surgery. Ample evidence indicates that by strengthening physician engagement, we can reduce gaps in the patient care we deliver.

Over the past five years, the SECOND Trial, a national prospective, pragmatic cluster-randomized trial of general surgery residency programs, has sought to generate data on and improve resident well-being. Programs randomized to receive the intervention were able to reduce resident burnout below that of control programs, reflecting the power of a large collaborative of surgical educators armed with benchmarked, department-specific data and tools.

However, over the course of the study, we have recognized that our ability to address resident well-being was limited by our inability to assess or intervene on faculty well-being. Furthermore, in observing many institutions acknowledge and attempt to remediate their workforce development challenges over the past few years, we have noticed a need for a theoretically driven, empirically based, systematic approach to fostering a more supportive department. Structured as another prospective, pragmatic cluster-randomized trial, the THIRD Trial aims to address surgeon well-being. All departments of surgery with an ACGME-accredited general surgery residency program will be eligible for enrollment in the THIRD Trial.