Plastic Surgery Training: Trends in Hand Surgery Fellowship in the Setting of a Pandemic

Given the diminishing presence of hand surgeons trained in plastic surgery, we evaluated the associated trends in annual hand meeting educational content and postgraduate job offerings, and analyzed the effect of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on trainees in hand surgery.

Hand meeting registration and educational content were analyzed over the past 10 years. Current hand surgery job offerings were evaluated for training requirements, and the annual rates of subspecialty certificate in surgery of the hand board certifications were compared across training backgrounds.

Top categories of annual meeting educational content were "bone/joint," "other," and "professional development." A majority of American Society for Surgery of the Hand presidents had training backgrounds in orthopedics (55%), followed by plastics (23%) and general surgery (22%). The job offerings on the American Society for Surgery of the Hand and Association for Surgery of the Hand websites specified more training requirements in orthopedics than in plastics. Additionally, there were two to three times as many examinees taking the surgery of the hand examination from orthopedic surgery compared with plastics, with an overall higher pass rate. Hand fellowship programs were also predominantly offered for orthopedic surgery (80.8%).

Optimization of training, society membership, and clinical practice profiles may increase the presence of plastic surgery-trained hand surgeons. The extent of the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is yet to be fully determined, but our analysis suggests that a lucrative market for reconstructive/hand surgery may exist in the face of economic downturn.