BACKGROUND
A medical student’s choice to pursue a career in surgery is influenced by many evolving factors and considerations and likely by experiences during education. We hypothesize that quantifying these variables will reveal trends influencing the choice of medical specialty. Our goal is to ascertain trends and factors that can be used to increase interest in surgery and attract students to pursue a surgical career.
METHODS
A questionnaire-based, longitudinal prospective study was conducted at a university program. Surveys were administered to medical students in the class of 2017 and 2018 before the start of the first year, second year, and clerkships. The questions cover topics including specialty preferences, mentorship, research, debt, and factors deemed desirable or important in a future career. For the purpose of this abstract, residency choices were classified as surgical and nonsurgical. Statistical relationships were calculated using SPSS software (IBM, Inc.).
RESULTS
Data were collected from students at the beginning of the first 3 years, and response rates were 88% to 94%. Students with any research experience before medical school were 64% less likely (P = 0.016) to have surgical career interest in the first survey. By the third year, however, students with mentors and research experience in any specialty are 3.4 times more likely to express interest in surgery (P < 0.001) when compared with those without a mentor and research experience. Students with surgical mentors in their first and second years are 4.1 and 12.6 times more likely, respectively, to express interest in surgery on their third-year survey (P = 0.024 and P < 0.001, respectively), compared with those with nonsurgical mentors. Similarly, students conducting surgery-related research during first and second years are 39.3 and 10.3 times more likely, respectively, to express interest in surgery on their third-year survey (P < 0.001 for both), compared with those conducting nonsurgical research. Students who had premedical school surgical mentors are 6.2 times more likely to change interest from surgical on the first survey to nonsurgical on the second survey (P = 0.005). Conversely, students with surgical mentors and surgical research experiences during their second year are 4.0 and 6.1 times more likely to change interest from nonsurgical on their first survey to surgical on their second survey (P = 0.006 and P < 0.001, respectively).
CONCLUSIONS
Students with surgical mentors and surgical research experiences are significantly more likely to express interest in surgical specialties. Furthermore, they are more likely to change their interest from nonsurgical to surgical early in medical school but are not significantly more likely to switch in their third year. Our preliminary conclusion is that engaging students in surgical research and fostering surgical mentor relationships earlier in medical school are significantly more likely to encourage interest in surgical specialties during the first 3 years of medical school.
Footnotes
Presented at the American Council of Academic Plastic Surgeons Winter Retreat, February 6 and 7, 2016, Chicago, Ill.
Disclosure: The author has no financial interest to declare in relation to the content of this article. The Article Processing Charge for this abstract was paid for by the American Council of Academic Plastic Surgeons.
ACAPS: PRS Global Open proudly publishes the abstracts and proceedings from the American Council of Academic Plastic Surgeons Winter Retreat that was held on February 6–7, 2016, in Chicago, Ill.