How competitive is general surgery and does it require research?

[MadScientist95]

Hello everyone! I am a first year osteopathic medical student and am trying to gain more information on different specialties that I am considering pursuing. One of them is general surgery. I have searched but cannot seem to find many answers regarding this specialty, how competitive it is and if research is needed. I would like to also note that I am Air Force HPSP and realize that they technically could deny me from getting into my top specialty of choice but I chose to do this because I want to serve. I would also like to mention that I am not interested in academic medicine and would therefore, be perfectly fine with doing a community based general surgery residency program (if I decide to pursue this specialty). I would also probably stay being a general surgeon and not want to specialize later on if chose to do this due to the residency already being 5 years long. I realize that this residency is brutal so I am not here to debate that. I am simply wondering, 1.) how competitive is general surgery in the Air Force and 2.) how competitive would it be in the civilian world if I were to get a civilian deferment and not care about where I go? Do I need research for either one? The reason I ask this as well is because I am not a fan of research. I did three years of it in undergrad and hated every second of it. However, I would be willing to suck it up during my education years and gain some experience if I needed to to make myself more competitive. Thank you!

 

[AlteredScale]

Don't need to post this twice. Closing.