Kevin McKevitt, Aoife Corcoran, Jarlath Bolger, Vanja Ristovic, Seamus Jennings, Colin Peirce, John Calvin Coffey
Background: General surgical training prior to higher surgical training (HST) has undergone significant changes in Ireland in recent years, moving from a 2-year basic surgical training (BST) with gap years, to a 3-year BST +/− gap years, to a run-through scheme, commencing 2013. It is unclear how these changes affect trainees’ research outputs. We examined patterns in research outputs in general surgical meetings in Ireland encompassing the three training pathways.
Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed of general surgical oral abstracts presented at the Freyer and Sylvester O’Halloran symposia from 2008–2016. Abstracts were classified as basic science, clinical, randomized control trial (RCT) or systematic review and meta-analysis independently by two authors (K McKevitt, A Corcoran). Any disagreements were resolved by a third author (JC Bolger). Session, number of authors and subsequent publication were recorded. The type of abstracts presented were compared for the given time periods.
Results: In total, 1,218 abstracts were presented. There was a significant decrease in the proportion of scientific papers presented in 2014–2016 as compared with 2008–2010 (P=0.0006) and 2011–2013 (P=0.04). There was a significant increase in mean number of authors from 2008–2010 to 2014–2016 (5.03 vs. 5.91, P=0.002). In plenary sessions, there was a significant decrease in basic science presentations in 2014–2016 as compared with 2008–2010 (P=0.01) and 2011–2013 (P=0.001). The proportion of basic science abstracts in plenary sessions dropped from 95.5% in 2012 to 34.7% in 2016.
Conclusions: As pathways change, fewer trainees are engaging in basic science. This has implications for surgical research and training, and for trainee fellowship prospects in future.
