The pediatric general surgery undergraduate medical curriculum: what should medical students learn?

Pediatric general surgery should be included in the undergraduate medical curriculum for reasons of improving the total surgical care of infants and children, to enable teachers to serve as role models to students considering a career in pediatric surgery and to ensure survival of pediatric surgery in the medical school curriculum. A survey of recent medical literature and surgical textbooks revealed little or no discussion concerning the aims, objectives, content, and design of the pediatric surgical curriculum. A survey of 15 Canadian medical schools showed that students are assigned very little didactic time for pediatric surgery (average total seven hours) and only 25% of graduates proceed to a clerkship in pediatric surgery, usually as an elective. The Association hereby proposes an undergraduate medical education curriculum in pediatric surgery for Canadian medical schools in order to stimulate discussion and achieve uniform input of pediatric surgery in the undergraduate medical program.