More procedure experience often means safer surgery and smoother recovery.
Peer reviewed evidence indicates that, for many operations, higher surgeon and hospital procedure volume is associated with fewer serious complications and lower short term mortality, but it does not guarantee results for any individual patient. Large population studies in the United States found lower operative mortality among higher volume surgeons and hospitals after adjustment for patient risk. Systematic reviews conclude that the direction of the volume outcome association is common across procedures, yet heterogeneous and limited by observational designs, residual confounding, and selective referral. In orthopedic joint replacement, studies and reviews report trends toward lower infection, transfusion, dislocation, readmission, and length of stay, and in some cohorts better function, when procedures are performed by higher volume surgeons and/or at higher volume centers. Some outcomes (for example, long term implant survivorship) show weaker or inconsistent volume signals, highlighting that volume is a proxy for multiple factors: technical repetition, team experience, perioperative pathways, and complication management. Overall, the literature supports using procedure specific experience as one informative quality signal to consider alongside patient fit, access, and shared decision making for complex procedures.