Table 2.

Summary of the motivators for women against applying for core surgical training

Motivators
Institutional factors		Quotes
Informative events	Going to conferences and courses for advice and application process.	‘I just got lots of verbal advice from lots of registrars. Went to conferences, went to preparation courses and that sort of got me into it.’
	Going to conferences and courses for increased motivation.	‘Just being in those conferences, which is very inspirational talks, so I think that was one of my motivation factors as well.’
Career progression		‘One of the better fields to work in with regards to career progression.’
		‘But like practically I thought “okay some specialties are better suited to private work”.’
Work-life	The variety of work in surgery.	‘Nice balance between, yes you’ve got lots of surgery but you do also still use some medical skills.’
	No difference in workload when compared with medicine.	‘The same whether you do medicine or surgery.’
	Less than full-time training is available in surgery.	‘You know less than full-time work is there and is available and you see lots of people make it work.’
Organisational culture		Quotes
Cultural shift	Reduce stigma about less than full-time training.	‘Reduction in stigma about less than full-time training.’
	Encourage diversity, both ethnic and females.	‘I think just generally within surgery there has been a move to encourage diversity, and I kind of saw that more when I started working within surgical specialties.’
Female presence	Increased female presence.	‘There were actually a lot of female registrars where I was and that really motivated me to apply.’
	Inspirational female team members.	‘She knows her stuff, she’s confident, she’s funny, she’s sociable, she’s nice, she’s the kind of person that you’d happily, sort of, sit down and have a chat with and just completely respect clinically and I think it was that kind of eye-opening moment; oh actually, you know, you don’t have to be a certain way to be a woman surgery you just have to be a woman who wants to do surgery.’
Active engagement	Having consultants who motivate and engage trainees.	‘I had great, great consultants who were really motivating and really enthusiastic about their field, so absolutely.’
	Having a good team that actively got participants involved.	‘Encouraging CTs and they yeah they were very encouraging and I was in a small District Hospital so they were constantly teaching us and they allowed us to do things to help operate so I think that’s what inspired me to do it.’
Social factors		Quotes
Mentor	Mentors had an influence.	‘They have definitely had a massive impact in my choices.’
	Impact of female presence throughout the training process, especially at senior levels.	‘I think it is incredibly, incredibly just reaffirming and heart-warming to see other women at a consultancy level, registrar level or even just a year or two ahead of me.’
Social support	Having a good team environment.	‘I really like when you’re in a good team and with really supportive, you know, seniors like it’s kind of an amazing experience.’
	Support from family.	‘My family and husband always said just that go for it whatever you want to do, do that, you may as well.’
Personal factors		Quotes
Exposure	Positive early exposure in foundation years.	‘I did not have the early exposure that I had during a really good surgical rotation I don’t think I’d be even remotely interested as much as I am now.’
	Being actively involved by a team in medical school.	‘Being taken on by that team quite early on and having that early operative exposure is quite important.’
	Positive exposure in foundation training.	‘To balance that out, like I was, I enjoyed the specialty, and I was really interested in in the specialty then I decided to choose it.’
Intrinsic motivation	Early goal and motivation to do surgery.	‘I wanted to do surgery before I went to medical school so that was always the plan.’
	Proving stereotypes wrong about women in surgery.	‘Proving yourself and the bar will be set different. But sometimes I actually use that as more of a motivation than deterrent.’
Nature of surgery	Personal interest in physiology.	‘I understand the range of pathology easily, mechanisms of disease comes naturally to me, I enjoy this abdominal anatomy.’
	Technical aspects and variety offered by surgery.	‘Think just the surgical specialties themselves being quite straightforward. And I think there’s the technical aspects I think which is another motivator. You really get to use your hands and you don't get very often in medical specialties.’