Surgical training; destination unknown? A survey on surgical employment in Flanders

A surgical fellowship allows both additional training as well as maintenance of surgical skills while searching for a steady job. As the presence of fellows usually does not result in a measurably higher productivity, fellowships may be considered a form of disguised unemployment. The aim of this study is to evaluate the career flow of a surgical trainee to a staff position and to determine the number of surgeons working on temporary basis within the general surgery workforce in Flanders.

All surgeons graduated in Flanders between 2000 and 2022 were invited to fill out a web-based survey concerning their current and past employment. Reminders were sent out after 2 and 4 weeks. Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS version 27.0 (IBM Inc., Chicago, IL).

Response rate was 64% (292/457) with 76% of respondents currently working as surgeons, 14% (38) as fellows and 10% working outside the surgical domain. Eighty-two percent of current fellows graduated in 2019 or later. Thirty-one percent of surgeons graduated in 2019 are still working as fellows. For surgeons graduated in 2020, 2021 and 2022, this is 45%, 80% and 90%, respectively. Compared to staff surgeons, the number of additional training years (2.8 ± 1.0 vs. 2.2 ± 1.3; p = .009) and the number of applications (6.6 ± 5 vs. 3.3 ± 3; p < .001) are significantly higher for current fellows.

This study shows that disguised unemployment is present in the general surgical community in Flanders. The status of 'fellow' should be incorporated in calculations concerning future needs of the surgical workforce in order to prevent open unemployment.