Association of increasing surgeon age with decreasing in-hospital mortality after coronary artery bypass graft surgery

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the relation between surgeon age and in-hospital mortality for patients who underwent a coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) using a nationwide population-based data set. Methods: This study used data from the 2004 Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. The study sample comprised 3766 patients hospitalized for CABG surgery and was divided into three equal-sized surgeon age groups: 45 years. A conditional (fixed-effect) logistic regression was performed to examine the relation between surgeon age and in-hospital mortality after adjusting for surgeon CABG caseload and characteristics of patients and surgeons as well as the clustering effect among surgeons. Results: Patients who underwent CABG performed by surgeons in the 45-year age group (2.6%). Regression shows that the adjusted odds ratio of in-hospital mortality for patients operated on by surgeons in the 45-year age group. Conclusion: We conclude that older surgeons are more likely to achieve better clinical performance with CABG surgery because of their greater clinical experience.