PRS-GO Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Global Open · 2021

Utilization of Rhinoplasty Worksheets among Practicing Facial Plastic Surgeons

Davila RO, Audlin J, Suryadevara A.

PubMed 34476154 Publisher (DOI)Free full text (PMC)

What this paper says

Of 130 surveyed facial plastic surgeons, 84 use a rhinoplasty operative worksheet but 111 said they never or rarely receive one from another surgeon before performing a revision.

Overview

Rhinoplasty is the most common procedure performed by facial plastic surgeons and among the most variable, yet no standardized worksheet exists for recording what was done and what was changed, despite the known revision rate. The study assessed how widely such worksheets are used and how surgeons view standardizing one. An online survey went to all active members of the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

Sections of note

Online survey of academy members; 130 respondents.
Eighty four of 130 reported using a surgical worksheet.
Of those 84, 63 used a variation of their own custom worksheet.
Forty five of the 84 used their worksheets often or always at follow up appointments.
One hundred and eleven of 130 reported never or rarely receiving another provider's worksheet before a revision rhinoplasty.
Ninety six of 130 were strongly in favour or in favour of sharing worksheets with other providers.
Eighty seven of 130 favoured establishing a standardized rhinoplasty worksheet for all patients.

What it means for a patient

A surgeon performing revision surgery usually does not have a record of what the first surgeon did.
Most surgeons keep their own record but in a personal format that others do not receive.
The majority surveyed supported sharing and standardizing those records.
Survey respondents self select, so these figures represent those who chose to answer rather than all surgeons.

Why this paper matters

Revision rhinoplasty is planned partly by guessing what was done previously, since the internal framework cannot be inspected without surgery. This survey documents that documentation gap and the appetite for fixing it. Whether standardizing worksheets would reduce revision difficulty has not been tested.

Terms

Surgical worksheet: a structured operative record listing the maneuvers and changes made.
Revision rhinoplasty: surgery on a nose that has already been operated on.
Standardization: adopting one common format across practitioners.
Facial plastic surgeon: a surgeon specializing in procedures of the face and nose.

Summary written by rhinoplasty.cc from the abstract, 2026-09-09; not medical advice. The authors' own abstract follows.

Abstract

Unlabelled: Rhinoplasty is the most commonly performed procedure by facial plastic surgeons, yet many consider it the most complex and variable surgery performed. Yet no standardized surgical worksheet has been established to document the maneuvers and anatomical changes made despite the known high rate of revision surgery. This study aimed to assess the utility and utilization of rhinoplasty surgical worksheets amongst facial plastic surgeons, as well as the perceptions and attitudes toward standardization of a common rhinoplasty surgical worksheet.

Method: We distributed an online survey to all active members of the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, in order to assess trends in utilization of surgical worksheets and the willingness of physicians to adhere to a standardized worksheet to be included in patient's medical records.

Results: When surveyed, 84 of the 130 respondents reported using a surgical worksheet, with 63 of 84 mentioned using a variation of their own custom worksheets. Of the 84 surgeons, 45 used these worksheets "often" or "always" during follow-up appointments. However, 111 of the 130 reported "never" or "rarely" receiving a surgical worksheet from another provider for revision rhinoplasties. In total, 96 of the 130 respondents were "strongly in favor" or "in favor" of sharing worksheets with other providers and 87/130 were in favor of establishing a standardized rhinoplasty worksheet for all rhinoplasty patients.

Conclusions: A majority of respondents reported using surgical worksheets for rhinoplasties with very few reporting ever receiving other surgeons' worksheets prior to revision rhinoplasties. Roughly three fourths of respondents were in favor of sharing worksheets along with a majority in favor of a standardized worksheet. This would represent a significant change in practice along with potentially increased collaboration between surgeons and subsequent advancement of patient care.

Abstract as indexed by PubMed; the article is open access (PubMed Central).