What percent of General surgery residencies are effectively 7 years now?

[ace_inhibitor111]

Curious about this. I’ve been trying to evaluate programs and many have 80% of their residents do 2 research years (which I’m not thrilled about...). Anyone have an estimate for how many programs have most of their residents do 7 years? Also, is this only for people who want to do fellowship? Not sure what benefit it would be for a community surgeon to do 2 years of research then never again.

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[WedgeDawg]

My understanding is that most of the heavily academic ones are 6-7 years, but that the people training at these programs are likely planning on becoming fellowship trained and/or staying in academics and so would benefit from the extra research time. If you’re planning on becoming a community general surgeon, these types of programs may not be the best match for you.

disclaimer: I am not a general surgeon

 

[Moose A Moose]

This is uncommon, but there are more than a handful out there.

 

[Dr.LeoSpaceman]

Curious about this. I’ve been trying to evaluate programs and many have 80% of their residents do 2 research years (which I’m not thrilled about...). Anyone have an estimate for how many programs have most of their residents do 7 years? Also, is this only for people who want to do fellowship? Not sure what benefit it would be for a community surgeon to do 2 years of research then never again.

There's about 300 GS programs, and according to FREIDA only 23 are University programs with mandatory research components. Now not all of those are going to be mandatory 1-2 years, as you would see only a subset have a required length of 6-7 years. The others would be ones with research components that don't extend training. Beyond these there would be a larger proportion which have options for "academic development years", contingent upon a variety of factors.

So to answer your question: Mandatory research time is fairly uncommon, but concentrated within the "top" academic programs. If your goal is to be a community general surgeon, these likely wouldn't be a great fit for a variety of reasons not limited to the mandatory research time. And really it's not even a necessity if you want to do fellowship unless you're thinking about Surg Onc or Peds (or another fellowship at some high-powered academic institution).

 

[thedrjojo]

Last I saw 80% or so of GS graduates do a fellowship... But many programs outside of academia don't allow their residents to take time for research...mainly going to see that at University programs. The program I work at, there isn't any mandatory research, I'd say 2/3rds of the residents take time off