PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Kyle Irvine AU - Marissa Alarcon AU - Heather Dyck AU - Barbara Martin AU - Tracey Carr AU - Gary Groot TI - Virtual surgical consultation during the COVID-19 pandemic: a patient-oriented, cross-sectional study using telephone interviews AID - 10.9778/cmajo.20210159 DP - 2022 Oct 01 TA - CMAJ Open PG - E1008--E1016 VI - 10 IP - 4 4099 - http://www.cmajopen.ca/content/10/4/E1008.short 4100 - http://www.cmajopen.ca/content/10/4/E1008.full SO - CMAJ2022 Oct 01; 10 AB - Background: Health care delivery shifted rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic, whereby virtual consultations replaced many face-to-face interactions. We sought to gather patient perspectives on their experiences with virtual surgical consultation, the advantages and disadvantages of this delivery method and their overall satisfaction with virtual appointments.Methods: We conducted a patient-oriented, cross-sectional study. Adult patients (age > 18 yr) who had a virtual consultation with a participating general surgeon in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, from April to May 2020 were eligible. We conducted telephone interviews using open- and close-ended questions. We used thematic analysis to determine themes from the qualitative data. As research team members, 2 patient partners were involved in identifying priorities, developing the research question, designing research methods, analyzing data and disseminating findings. We analyzed and presented quantitative data descriptively.Results: We interviewed 45 participants from 7 general surgery practices; the average age was 62 years. Most participants lived outside Saskatoon and had virtual follow-up appointments. The 3 themes related to advantages of virtual consultations were convenience, cost savings and decreased exposure to pathogens. The 4 themes related to their disadvantages were that they were not as personal, the surgeon was not able to perform a physical examination, and there were issues with scheduling and issues with technology. Most participants were satisfied with the care they received (n = 41) and would be willing to use virtual consultation in the future (n = 31).Interpretation: We found that virtual consultations are an effective and efficient way to deliver surgical care but are not appropriate for every situation and cannot completely replace face-to-face interactions. Our study identified the advantages and disadvantages of virtual surgical consultation to help better guide the delivery of virtual care in the future.