J. J. Wackerbarth1,8, P. Numann5, R. Maier4, S. M. Wren3, A. L. Kushner2,6,7 1University Of Washington School Of Medicine,Seattle, WA, USA 2Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School Of Public Health,Dept Intl Health,Baltimore, MD, USA 3Stanford University,Dept. Surgery,Palo Alto, CA, USA 4University Of Washington,Dept. Surgery,Seattle, WA, USA 5State University Of New York Upstate Medical University,Dept. Surgery,Syracuse, NY, USA 6Columbia University College Of Physicians And Surgeons,Dept. Surgery,New York, NY, USA 7Surgeons OverSeas,NY, NY, USA 8Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School Of Public Health,Baltimore, MD, USA
Introduction: Interest in international health is growing among surgical residents and medical students. Increasingly, applicants to surgical training programs look to see if they can incorporate structured international experience and programs into their training. Despite this, many general surgical residency programs lack a formal international component or insufficiently promote global surgery programs and experiences. We hypothesized that the majority of programs do not have formal global health training or do not provide the information to prospective applicants regarding electives or programs in an easily accessible manner.
Methods: Individual general surgery program websites and the ACS “So, You Want to Be a Surgeon” tool were used to evaluate 239 general surgical residencies in the United States. The residency homepages were examined for specific mention of international or global health programs. Further examination was conducted for any mention of formal surgical electives, global health concentrations or pathways. Ease of access was also considered and graded as accessible if available within two links of the homepage. Using the search window, “global surgery” and “international health” were individually queried to identify other resources or programs.
Results: The majority of general surgery residency program websites in the United States do not have any mention of international or global surgery programs or opportunities on their homepage that are easily accessible. Out of 239 programs, 23 (9.6%) were found to have mention of any sort of international experience on their homepage, and 39 (16.3%) were found to have information about international electives accessible at all. Thirty-two residencies (13.4%) had dedicated programs, pathways, or surgery specific centers for global health. Of those with information available, 42% were scored as easily accessible. Compared to community based programs, academic centers were more likely to have information about international opportunities on their homepage (11.9% vs. 6.9%) and more likely to have a dedicated program or pathway website (20.7% vs. 4.0%).
Conclusion: General surgery residency programs do not effectively or easily communicate international opportunities for prospective residents through web-based resources. Interest continues to grow in an increasingly global world of medicine, to optimize training and recruit potentially a group of the most dedicated providers of the future, programs should enhance the international surgery opportunities and ease of access.