Clinical Approach in Youth Sports Medicine: Patients' and Guardians' Desired Characteristics in Sports Medicine Surgeons.

Abstract

Adolescent athletes' and their guardians' preferences for sports medicine surgeon characteristics are unknown. Unique, anonymous surveys regarding preferences in characteristics of sports medicine surgeons were given to both patients (aged 10 to 18 years) and their guardians before being seen by a sports medicine surgeon. Patients and their guardians reported shared decision making as the most important surgeon characteristic, followed by understanding patients' sports and goals. A higher percentage of male patients than female patients had a surgeon sex preference (P = 0.005); however, for both the groups, this ranked lower than other surgeon qualities. Nearly all respondents reported that the adolescent patient should be involved in medical decision making; yet, physician selection was determined by the guardian 65% of the time. Both adolescent patients and their guardians reported shared decision making and understanding patients' sports and goals as surgeon qualities that were more important to them than surgeon sex. Level IV, cross-sectional study.