I would let her do my Whipple if she were specialty trained to do so. I think we're confusing "part-time" here with "uncommitted"--in my book, that is like confusing "fish" with "bicycles". One has nothing to do with the other, and we'd do well to recognize that once and for all.

The part-time Whipple probably isn't a good idea:

Maybe that's the impression you got from Dr. Siegbert

President comes to mind.

What I was thinking about was the general surgeons in the community hospital in which I was rotating who were trying to convince a patient that they could do the Whipple, and that this patient didn't need a referral to an academic medical center. They had done at most a handful before, which may or may not have been done in residency. I would absolutely still take a part-time surgeon to do a big surgery like that if the week she was on service, she was doing Whipples, and I was convinced that she had everything else I was looking for in a surgeon. So yes, numbers are important to me, too. I'm sure other people might choose otherwise, and that's fine, too.

I agree that you can't dabble in medicine--your head has to be in the game. But it goes both ways--there are people who work a lot of hours who really aren't improving their skills with experience, and vice versa. Of course it is possible for someone to work part-time and be a bad doctor, and maybe they are being set up to be less skilled than a full-time worker. But that is the challenge, and I think most women recognize that and bust their butts to provide high-quality care in every other way.

We all know that there are surgeons out there who are terrible communicators, who go into self-destruct mode when a disaster happens, who are distracted by administrative tasks or personal problems. And there are some who just don't have the hands for it. These characteristics are much harder to quantify in a single study.

I think in the coming years, we will be more cognizant of minimum threshold experiences that make someone competent (not excellent, just competent) at a certain task, and we will place more emphasis on other elements that result in better outcomes, such as good communication, thoughtfulness, personal wellness, attention to detail, and knowledge of current research. If someone needs to work part-time (while still keeping their numbers on par) so they can also excel in these other spheres, I think that is laudable.

ps-part-time to me means >30 hrs/wk.
(Not to pick on surgeons--we all do those things to some extent--it just seems to be where the topic is meandering....)

What I was thinking about was the general surgeons in the community hospital in which I was rotating who were trying to convince a patient that they could do the Whipple, and that this patient didn't need a referral to an academic medical center. They had done at most a handful before, which may or may not have been done in residency.