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. 2019 May 8;19(1):136.
doi: 10.1186/s12909-019-1562-6.

Profiling recent medical graduates planning to pursue surgery, anesthesia and obstetrics in Brazil

Aline Gil Alves Guilloux  1 , Jania A Ramos  2   3 , Isabelle Citron  2 , Lina Roa  2   4 , Julia Amundson  2 , Benjamin B Massenburg  2 , Saurabh Saluja  2 , Bruno Alonso Miotto  5 , Nivaldo Alonso  5 , Mario César Scheffer  5
Affiliations

Profiling recent medical graduates planning to pursue surgery, anesthesia and obstetrics in Brazil

Aline Gil Alves Guilloux et al. BMC Med Educ. .

Abstract

Background: Lack of providers in surgery, anesthesia, and obstetrics (SAO) is a primary driver of limited surgical capacity worldwide. We aimed to identify predictors of entry into Surgery, Anesthesia, and Obstetrics and Gynecology (SAO) fields and preference of working in the public sector in Brazil which may help in profiling medical students for recruitment into these needed areas.

Methods: A questionnaire was applied to all Brazilian medical graduates registered with a Board of Medicine from 2014 to 2015. Twenty-three characteristics were analyzed. Logistic regression was used to determine predictors' influence on outcome.

Results: There were 4601 (28.2%) responders to the survey, of which 40.5% (CI 34.7-46.5%) plan to enter SAO careers. Of the 23 characteristics analyzed, eight differed significantly between those who planned to work in SAO and those who did not. Of those eight characteristics, just three were significant predictors in the regression model: preference for working in the hospital setting, having spent more than 70% of their clinical years in practical activities, and valuing the substantial earning potential. These three factors explained only 6.3% of the variance in SAO preference. Within the graduates who preferred SAO careers, there were only two predictors for working in the public sector ("preparatory time before medical school" and valuing "prestige/status").

Conclusions: Factors affecting specialty and sector choice are multifaceted and difficult to predict. Future programs to fill provider gaps should identify methods other than medical student profiling to assure specialty and sector needs are met.

Keywords: Anesthesia; Global surgery; Medical education; Obstetrics; Specialty selection; Surgical workforce.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was approved by the University of Sao Paulo Medical School’s Research Ethics Committee. Consent of participants was implied upon voluntary completion of the questionnaire.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Map of Brazil, representing the response rate of the survey questionnaire per geographic region. This file has a figure that show the different response rate in each region and that was used as part of mathematical correction used to analyze all the data
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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