Effect of COVID-19 on surgical training across the United States: a national survey of general surgery residents
Open accessAbstract
Introduction COVID-19 emerged as a global pandemic in 2020 and has affected millions of lives. Surgical training has also been significantly affected by this pandemic, but the exact effect remains unknown. We sought to perform a national survey of general surgery residents in the United States to assess the effect of COVID-19 on surgical resident training, education, and burnout.Methods An anonymous online survey was created and distributed to general surgery residents across the United States. The survey aimed to assess changes to surgical residents' clinical schedules, operative volume, and educational curricula as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, we sought to assess the impact of COVID-19 on resident burnout.Results One thousand one hundred and two general surgery residents completed the survey. Residents reported a significant decline in the number of cases performed during the pandemic. Educational curricula were largely shifted toward online didactics. The majority of residents reported spending more time on educational didactics than before the pandemic. The majority of residents feared contracting COVID-19 or transmitting it to their family during the pandemic.Conclusions COVID-19 has had significant impact on surgical training and education. One positive consequence of the pandemic is increased educational didactics. Online didactics should continue to be a part of surgical education in the post-COVID-19 era. Steps need to be taken to ensure that graduating surgical residents are adequately prepared for fellowship and independent practice despite the significantly decreased case volumes during this pandemic. Surgery training programs should focus on providing nontechnical clinical training and professional development during this time.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
National Cluster-Randomized Trial of Duty-Hour Flexibility in Surgical Training
Bilimoria, K. Y., Chung, J. W., Hedges, L. V., Dahlke, A. R., Love, R., Cohen, M. E., Hoyt, D. B., Yang, A. D., Tarpley, J. L., Mellinger, J. D., et al. (2016) · New England Journal of Medicine · doi:10.1056/nejmoa1515724 · Cited by 460 · see citing works
Possible Bat Origin of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2
Lau, S. K. P., Luk, H. K. H., Wong, A. C. P., Li, K. S. M., Zhu, L., He, Z., Fung, J., Chan, T. T.-Y., Fung, K. S. C., & Woo, P. C. Y. (2020) · Emerging infectious diseases · doi:10.3201/eid2607.200092 · Cited by 286 · see citing works
Orthopaedic Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Kogan, M., Klein, S. E., Hannon, C. P., & Nolte, M. T. (2020) · Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons · doi:10.5435/jaaos-d-20-00292 · Cited by 279 · see citing works
Medical Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Single Institution Experience
Singh, K., Srivastav, S., Bhardwaj, A., Dixit, A., & Misra, S. (2020) · Indian Pediatrics · doi:10.1007/s13312-020-1899-2 · Cited by 233 · see citing works
National Evaluation of Racial/Ethnic Discrimination in US Surgical Residency Programs
Yuce, T. K., Turner, P. L., Glass, C. C., Hoyt, D. B., Nasca, T. J., Bilimoria, K. Y., & Hu, Y. (2020) · JAMA Surgery · doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2020.0260 · Cited by 139 · see citing works
COVID-19 – Considerations and Implications for Surgical Learners
Daodu, O. O., Panda, N., Lopushinsky, S. R., et al. (2020) · Annals of Surgery · doi:10.1097/sla.0000000000003927 · Cited by 85 · see citing works
Association of Surgical Resident Wellness With Medical Errors and Patient Outcomes
Hewitt, D. B., Ellis, R. J., Chung, J. W., Cheung, E. O., Moskowitz, J. T., Huang, R., Merkow, R. P., Yang, A. D., Hu, Y., Cohen, M. E., et al. (2020) · Annals of Surgery · doi:10.1097/sla.0000000000003909 · Cited by 57 · see citing works
Roy, S. F., & Cecchini, M. J. (2020) · Journal of Clinical Pathology · doi:10.1136/jclinpath-2020-206682 · Cited by 42 · see citing works
Review of COVID-19 Outcomes in Surgical Patients
Aziz, H., Filkins, A., & Kwon, Y. (2020) · The American Surgeon · doi:10.1177/0003134820934395 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Self-citationAdvanced head and neck surgery training during the COVID ‐19 pandemic
Givi, B., Moore, M. G., Bewley, A. F., et al. (2020) · Head & Neck · doi:10.1002/hed.26252 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Sheikh, M. R., Osman, H. G., Butt, M. U., et al. (2016) · HPB · doi:10.1016/j.hpb.2016.08.004 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Self-citationDermatologic surgery training during the COVID‐19 era
García‐Lozano, J. A., Cuéllar‐Barboza, A., Garza‐Rodríguez, V., et al. (2020) · Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology · doi:10.1111/jdv.16621 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
A simple solution to improve surgical teaching among medical students
de Wolf, M., & Birch, E. (2020) · Clinical Anatomy · doi:10.1002/ca.23618 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- [15]Yuce T.K. Turner P.L. Glass C. National evaluation of racial/ethnic discrimination in US surgical residency programs [published online ahead of print, 2020 Apr 15] JAMA Surg 2020 e200260 10.1001/jamasurg.2020.0260 PMC7160741 32293655 · DOI
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Daniel, M., Gordon, M., Patricio, M., Hider, A., Pawlik, C., Bhagdev, R., Ahmad, S., Alston, S., Park, S., Pawlikowska, T., et al. (2021) · Medical Teacher · doi:10.1080/0142159x.2020.1864310 · Cited by 246 · see citing works
Sabetkish, N., & Rahmani, A. (2021) · Health Science Reports · doi:10.1002/hsr2.386 · Cited by 68 · see citing works
Daryanto, B., Rahmadiani, N., Amorga, R., Kautsarani, I., Susilo, H., & Persada Isma, S. P. (2022) · Clinical Epidemiology and Global Health · doi:10.1016/j.cegh.2022.100994 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Navinés, R., Olive, V., Hidalgo-Mazzei, D., Langohr, K., Vieta, E., & Martin-Santos, R. (2024) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1286101 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Awadallah, N. S., Jones, T. S., Christian, N., Fainstad, T., Nyquist, J., Schreiber, J., Fung, C.-C., Rumack, C. M., Nehler, M., & Jaiswal, K. R. (2023) · Journal of Surgical Education · doi:10.1016/j.jsurg.2022.09.021 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
- Authors
- Aziz, H., James, T., Remulla, D., Sher, L., Genyk, Y., Sullivan, M. E., & Sheikh, M. R.
- Affiliations
- University of Southern California (US)
- Corresponding author
- Sheikh, Mohd Raashid
- ORCID
- Venue
- Journal of Surgical Education
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2021-03
- Volume
- 78
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 431-439
- ISSN
- 1878-7452 (ISSN-L)
- 1931-7204
- PMC
- PMC7391955
- OpenAlex
- W3045548314
- Cited by
- 229
- References
- 13
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 49 · 2022: 73 · 2021: 63 · 2020: 6
- FWCI
- 43.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of surgical education (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Surgery › Surgical Simulation and Training
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Innovations in Medical Education
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › COVID-19 and healthcare impacts
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, general surgery residency, surgical training, resident burnout, fear of infection transmission, non-technical skills, professional development
- MeSH terms
- COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Adult, Burnout, Professional, Curriculum, Education, Medical, Graduate, Female, Humans, Internship and Residency, Male, Surveys and Questionnaires, General Surgery, United States, Pandemics, Surgeons
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
