Lavanga Elizabeth, Dogbe Leana, Soucy Jacob, Aziz Faizaan, Nguyen S Lauren, Zil-E-Ali Ahsan, Aziz Faisal
Department of Medical Education, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, United States.
Department of Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States.
Front Surg. 2024 May 28;11:1409688. doi: 10.3389/fsurg.2024.1409688. eCollection 2024.
With the growing proportion of elderly population in the US and a relatively fixed supply of well-trained vascular surgeons, there is a serious concern that we will be facing a shortage of vascular surgery workforce in the near future. One of the main reasons why there is a shortage of vascular surgeons in the US is due to the fact that many students don't get exposed to this field throughout their student lives and a recent survey of medical students from a non-urban tertiary care academic institution showed that early exposure of the medical students to the surgical careers is correlated with an increased interest in the surgical field. This review of the state of vascular surgery education in the US at the undergraduate level describes in detail the importance of an early introduction to vascular surgery in the education curricula, the current state of the education, potential avenues to improve the exposure of students to the field of vascular surgery and the importance of this effort in matching the increasing need for vascular surgeons for an aging population which is likely to require dedicated care by vascular surgeons of the future. At the present time, the two pathways by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) to obtain dedicated vascular surgery training in the US include either enrolling in a two year clinical fellowship after completion of general surgery training or to match in a five year vascular surgery integrated residency program after successful completion of medical degree.
随着美国老年人口比例的不断增加以及训练有素的血管外科医生供应相对固定，人们严重担心在不久的将来我们将面临血管外科劳动力短缺的问题。美国血管外科医生短缺的主要原因之一是，许多学生在整个学生生涯中都没有接触过这个领域，最近对一所非城市三级医疗学术机构的医学生进行的一项调查显示，医学生早期接触外科职业与对外科领域兴趣的增加相关。这篇关于美国本科阶段血管外科教育状况的综述详细描述了在教育课程中尽早引入血管外科的重要性、教育的现状、提高学生对血管外科领域接触的潜在途径，以及这项工作对于满足老龄化人口对血管外科医生日益增长的需求的重要性，而老龄化人口未来可能需要血管外科医生的专门护理。目前，美国毕业后医学教育认证委员会（ACGME）获得专门血管外科培训的两条途径包括：在完成普通外科培训后参加为期两年的临床 fellowship，或者在成功获得医学学位后匹配进入为期五年的血管外科综合住院医师项目。
