The impact of medical student surgical conferences

Recent reports have shown that in the UK there has been a decrease in interest towards pursuing a surgical career, whereas early exposure to surgery may increase interest. We aimed to assess the effect of a 1-day medical school surgical conference in encouraging attendees to pursue a surgical career.

All attendees of the 2014 Barts and The London National Undergraduate Surgical conference were invited to participate in an online survey. Data were collected and analysed to evaluate students' reasons for attending the conference, and attitudes to careers in surgery before and after the conference.

Of 229 students, 130 (56.8%) completed the survey. Year-12 high-school and preclinical medical students showed a statistically significant difference in interest in pursuing a surgical career after the conference than before it (p = 0.0002 and p = 0.0027, respectively), but clinical medical students demonstrated no such change.

Attendance at surgical conferences designed for medical students can significantly increase the desire of high-school students and preclinical medical students to pursue a surgical career, but may not have the same effect for clinical medical students. Surgical conferences may act as an effective means of recruiting students towards choosing a surgical career for a certain subset of students.