Career in vascular surgery – the medical student’s perspective

Aim: Under the supervision of the Department of General and Vascular Surgery of Poznan University of Medical Sciences, a questionnaire was distributed online or as a paper version to medical students (MSs) in order to better understand the attitudes towards surgery as a specialty and to determine the reasons why students do and do not choose vascular surgery as their career path. Materials and methods: The questionnaire was distributed online or as a paper version to MSs in the 3rd, 5th, and 6th year of the PUMS 6-year M.D. program. It provided the data on the year of study, grade point average (GPA), sex, age, respondent’s specialty choice, 33 questions with responses on a 1-5 Likert scale (1 was the least important reason and 5 was the most important reason), and 2 questions with socres between 0 and 4. A total of 136 Polish MSs of PUMS completed the survey. Results: For MSs who choose vascular surgery as their career path, “endovascular capabilities of vascular surgery” and “higher income possibilities than a general surgeon” were the most important reasons. The “poor availability of work in other places than the vascular surgery department of your choice, few such clinics in the region” was the most important reason not to choose vascular surgery. A role of gender was also noted - 13% of male MSs classified gender as an “important factor”, in contrast to 60% of female MSs. Conclusions: The findings of this study might help to develop better strategies to attract future trainees to surgical specialties, particularly vascular surgery, and improve work environment.