Aguilar-Chavez Felipe, Gonzalez-Gonzalez Fernando, Lee Angel, Alvarez-Medina Orlando, Anchondo-Alvidrez Adrian, Martinez Tapia Maria Elena, Arellanes-Chavez Carlos A
Spine Surgery Department, CISNE Spine Academy, Star Medica, Chihuahua, Mexico.
Stroke Unit Department, Hospital Angeles del Pedregal, Mexico City, Mexico.
Int J Spine Surg. 2025 Jun 12;19(3):355-361. doi: 10.14444/8767.
The emergence of spine surgery fellowship programs in Mexico is gaining significance; however, there exists a paucity of available information pertaining to the specific requirements and criteria employed for candidate selection, operational structure, and educational framework, which affects the ability of potential applicants to make informed decisions about their training options.
A systematic web search was executed to identify the official websites of the predominant private and public health care institutions that provide spine fellowship programs in Mexico. This search was carried out by 3 spine surgery fellows between December 2023 and January 2024 utilizing the Google search engine with specific keywords previously employed in similar studies. Subsequently, we performed an evaluation to ascertain the existence of 13 elements that are pertinent to residency candidates and the ease of finding information for each program.
Twenty-five spine surgery fellowship programs were identified. Of these, 14 (56%) are endorsed by the Autonomous University of Mexico, 2 (8%) by La Salle University, and the remainder by various universities such as the Autonomous University of Guadalajara and the Autonomous University of Chihuahua, among others. The majority of programs were listed on the website of the Mexican Association of Spine Surgeons, with contact information being readily available in most cases (72%), whereas details about program chairs were primarily found on hospital websites (16%). The simplicity of the search revealed that 88% of programs could be easily located online.
Numerous spine surgery training programs are deficient in thorough online information, which creates challenges for prospective national and international applicants seeking details. Most programs depend on their reputation instead of an online presence, indicating a chance to improve marketing and visibility of spine surgery fellowship programs in Mexico.
The training of spine surgeons is extremely important, so the visibility of training programs helps promote this specialty and, therefore, the training of surgeons.
墨西哥脊柱外科 fellowship 项目的出现正变得越来越重要；然而，关于候选人选拔所采用的具体要求和标准、运营结构以及教育框架的可用信息匮乏，这影响了潜在申请者就其培训选择做出明智决定的能力。
进行了系统的网络搜索，以确定墨西哥提供脊柱 fellowship 项目的主要私立和公立医疗机构的官方网站。2023 年 12 月至 2024 年 1 月期间，3 名脊柱外科 fellowship 学员利用谷歌搜索引擎，使用先前在类似研究中使用的特定关键词进行了此次搜索。随后，我们进行了一项评估，以确定与住院医师候选人相关的 13 个要素的存在情况以及每个项目信息查找的难易程度。
确定了 25 个脊柱外科 fellowship 项目。其中，14 个（56%）得到墨西哥国立自治大学的认可，2 个（8%）得到拉萨尔大学的认可，其余的得到瓜达拉哈拉自治大学和奇瓦瓦自治大学等各所大学的认可。大多数项目列在墨西哥脊柱外科医生协会的网站上，大多数情况下（72%）联系信息很容易获取，而项目负责人的详细信息主要在医院网站上找到（16%）。搜索的简易性表明，88%的项目可以很容易地在网上找到。
许多脊柱外科培训项目缺乏全面的在线信息，这给寻求详细信息的国内外潜在申请者带来了挑战。大多数项目依赖其声誉而非在线展示，这表明有机会改善墨西哥脊柱外科 fellowship 项目的营销和知名度。
脊柱外科医生的培训极其重要，因此培训项目的知名度有助于推广这一专业，进而有助于外科医生的培训。
