Medical Students' Perceived Interests and Concerns for a Career in Neurosurgery

The factors that attract and concern medical students about a career in neurosurgery have never been clearly characterized or delineated in a large nationwide cohort of medical students intending to pursue a career in neurosurgery. The objective of the present study was to characterize the factors that influence medical student interest in neurosurgery and assess the effects of a formal neurosurgery training

course on participants' perceptions of a career in neurosurgery.
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Methods: Before the Medical Student Neurosurgery Training Camp for subinternship preparation, registered students were surveyed about their interest level in neurosurgery, factors that attracted or concerned them about a career in neurosurgery, attendance at a national neurosurgery conference or course, formal clinical neurosurgery exposure in medical school, and whether they had a resident or attending mentor in neurosurgery. At the end of the course, all the participants completed the surveyed again. P < 0.05 was considered significant on Pearson's χ2 and Fisher's exact tests for categorical variables and 2-tailed paired Student's t tests for continuous variables.

​Investigators
Susan C. Pannullo, MD; Jeffrey P. Greenfield, MD, PhD; Iyan Younus; Ryan E. Radwanski; Graham Winston

Project Start: September 1, 2018
Project End: August 31, 2019

Associated Institutions
Brain and Spine Group, Inc.
Weill Cornell Medicine Department of Neurological Surgery

Project Funding: Weill Cornell Medicine Department of Neurological Surgery

Final Report
Guadix, S. W., Younus, I., Winston, G., ElJalby, M., Xia, J., Nario, J. J., Rothbaum, M., Radwanski, R. E., Greenfield, J. P., & Pannullo, S. C. (2020). Medical Students' Perceived Interests and Concerns for a Career in Neurosurgery. World neurosurgery, S1878-8750(20)30640-9. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wneu.2020.03.169