Fragmentation of general surgery: burning to death or rising from the ashes.

General Surgery is losing its appeal and is facing a critical shortage of surgeons. It therefore has to change and adapt to this new reality and we surgeons are responsible for meeting this challenge. If we want students and residents to embrace surgery we need to show them the rewards and satisfaction that we derive from the profession. A 5 year curriculum is needed to train the "abdominal surgery" or "general surgery specialist," who will maintain and teach comprehensive care of the surgical patient and practice a more limited scope of surgical procedures. In addition, we should train a limited number of disease-oriented specialists by means of 1-2 year fellowships.