The future of general surgery characterized by general surgical chief residents.

The future of any specialty in medicine depends in large part on the career choices of its trainees. We obtained data from General Surgery Chief Residents who finished their training in 1990 and compared their attitudes to a similar survey conducted by us in 1985. According to those responses, residents in general surgery continue to choose fellowship training at a time when they no longer perceive an oversupply of general surgeons. This has broad implications for the future of general surgery as a specialty that requires significant change in the structure of our residency programs.