This study determined that patients with complaints during a surgical admission were more likely to experience a surgical complication than those patients without complaints. Investigators conducted a retrospective analysis of nearly 17,000 surgical admissions using administrative data to identify complications while simultaneously capturing unsolicited patient complaints. While the findings suggest a correlation, the absolute number of patient complaints was low and nature of patient complaints varied (eg, due to poor clinical outcome versus dissatisfaction with a provider), making further interpretation difficult.