Surgical Departments: Enroll in THIRD Trial to Improve Inclusion and Well-Being

In an effort to address departmental inclusion and surgeon well-being, the ACS is working with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and the Indiana University School of Medicine’s Surgical Education Numbered Trials group on the Trial To Harness Inclusion And Foster Resilient Departments Of Surgery (THIRD) Trial.

Structured as prospective, pragmatic cluster-randomized trial, the THIRD Trial will build upon the results of the successful Surgical Education Culture Optimization Through Targeted Interventions Based On National Comparative Data (SECOND) Trial, which has sought to generate data on and improve resident well-being. Programs that received the SECOND 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.

The THIRD Trial was initiated when SECOND researchers recognized that addressing resident well-being was limited by an inability to assess or intervene on faculty well-being. On observing many institutions acknowledge and attempt to remediate their lack of physician diversity over the past few years, researchers noticed a need for a theoretically driven, empirically based, systematic approach to advancing departmental inclusion.

Enrollment for the THIRD Trial is now open. All departments of surgery with an ACGME-accredited general surgery residency program are eligible for enrollment in the THIRD Trial.