A. Tanious1, H. McMullin2, C. Jokisch2, M. K. Tanious3, L. T. Boitano1, M. F. Conrad1, M. L. Shames2 1Massachusetts General Hospital,Vascular Surgery,Boston, MA, USA 2University Of South Florida College Of Medicine,Vascular Surgery,Tampa, FL, USA 3Brigham And Women’s Hospital,Anesthesia And Pain Medicine,Boston, MA, USA
Introduction:
Chair of the Department of Surgery, sometimes referred to as the Chief of the Department of Surgery, is a title with significant historical connotations. As medicine has progressed, these individuals have become beacons of leadership to advance all aspects of surgery within our hospitals. Our group sought to understand what qualifications unify them as group.
Methods:
We defined our cohort by first looking at all teaching hospitals with regard to general surgical training as defined by the ACGME. Then, utilizing publically available data for all US teaching hospitals, demographic information was accumulated for the named chair/chiefs of surgery as of the end of the calendar year of 2016. Information collected included geographic location of their program, individual medical/surgical training history, surgical specialty training, previous chair/chief titles held (for both individual and entire departments), and academic productivity. Specific to academic productivity, PubMed searches were done for all peer-reviewed manuscripts and library searches were conducted to account for all book and book chapter publications.
Results:
Of the 259 academic surgical programs listed by the ACGME, data was available on 245 individuals. These leaders were trained in 19 different specialties, with 177 (72.2%) of these practitioners having had fellowship training. The top three specialties of these practitioners are general surgery (40, 16.3%), surgical oncology (38, 15.5%), and vascular surgery (33, 13.5%). There were only 14 female chairs (5.7%) and only one chair with a doctor of osteopathic medicine degree.
The general surgery training program that has produced the greatest number of these individuals is Johns Hopkins University (n = 11), followed by the Massachusetts General Hospital (n = 8), and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (n = 7).
Forty percent (n = 99) have held previous positions of leadership of surgical subdivisions as division chiefs. Sixteen percent (n = 40) were previous chairs of other departments prior to their current position as chair. The average chair had 72 peer-reviewed manuscripts with 28 published book chapters. Other traits studied included Alpha Omega Alpha honors society membership (n = 37, 15%), and dual degree status (n = 37, 15%).
Chair’s at academic institutions with university affiliation had a significantly higher number of peer-reviewed manuscripts (P < .0001) as well as were more likely to be fellowship trained (P = .0113).
Conclusion:
While there are no set guidelines that define the position of Chair of Department of Surgery, these individuals are well trained, well published, and familiar with leadership roles. By understanding a group of baseline characteristics that unify these surgical leaders, young faculty and trainees with leadership aspirations may begin to understand what is necessary to fill these roles in the future.