Repeated event long format data to single multiple variable

I have a repeated observations in long format

ID      Approach Date
-42365 Sternotomy 18-11-2022
-42365 Thoracotomy 22-03-2024
-11234 Thoracotomy 12-03-2018
-11234 Sternotomy 17-05-2023

I have to convert it to this using dplyr or any other packge:

ID     Approach_1    Date_1   Approach_2 Date_2
-42365 Sternotomy  18-11-2022 Thoracotomy 22-03-2024
-11234 Thoracotomy 12-03-2018 Sternotomy 17-05-2023

Solution

The trick is to create a unique identifier since the ID alone isn't one, then play with pivot_*.

df1 <- read.table(text = "ID      Approach Date
-42365 Sternotomy 18-11-2022
-42365 Thoracotomy 22-03-2024
-11234 Thoracotomy 12-03-2018
-11234 Sternotomy 17-05-2023", header = TRUE)

library(dplyr)
#> 
#> Attaching package: 'dplyr'
#> The following objects are masked from 'package:stats':
#> 
#>     filter, lag
#> The following objects are masked from 'package:base':
#> 
#>     intersect, setdiff, setequal, union
library(tidyr)

df1 %>%
  mutate(cnt = seq_along(Approach), .by = ID) %>%
  pivot_longer(-c(ID, cnt)) %>%
  pivot_wider(
    id_cols = ID,
    names_from = c(name, cnt),
    values_from = value
  )
#> # A tibble: 2 × 5
#>       ID Approach_1  Date_1     Approach_2  Date_2    
#>    <int> <chr>       <chr>      <chr>       <chr>     
#> 1 -42365 Sternotomy  18-11-2022 Thoracotomy 22-03-2024
#> 2 -11234 Thoracotomy 12-03-2018 Sternotomy  17-05-2023

^{Created on 2024-10-14 with reprex v2.1.1}