A Survey of Current State of Training of Plastic Surgery Residents

Background: Plastic surgery training is undergoing major changes however there is paucity of data detailing the current state of training as perceived by plastic surgical trainees. Our aim was to determine the quality of training as perceived by the current trainee pool and their future plans.

Methods: A 25-item anonymous survey with three discrete sections (demographics, quality of training, and post-graduate career plans) was developed and distributed to plastic surgery residents during the academic year 2013. With the confidence interval of 95% and margin of error of 10%, our target response rate was 87 responders.

Results: We received a total of 114 respondents with all levels of Post Graduate Year in training represented. Upon comparison of residents with debt of <100,000 to residents with a debt of >250,000, those with higher debt were significantly less interested in fellowship training (p value 0.05) and were more likely to pursue private practice (p value <0.01). Disciplines within plastic surgery least offered as a separate rotation were microsurgery (45%) followed by aesthetic surgery (33%). 53.7% of the residents felt that they were least trained in aesthetic surgery followed by burn surgery 45.4%. Of note 56.4% intended to seek additional training after residency. Moreover residents with an average of 6.4 months of experience in an individual subspecialty were more likely to feel comfortable with that specialty.

Conclusions: This survey highlights the areas and subspecialties that deserve attention as perceived by the current trainee pool.