Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on surgical training in the United States

The impact of the coronavirus disease COVID-19 pandemic on surgical training in the United States remains a controversial topic. In this study, we examined resident and fellow operative volumes in the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods across ten different surgical specialties. Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) national data reports were collected for ten surgical specialties, including general surgery, neurological surgery, ophthalmology, orthopedic surgery, pediatric surgery, plastic surgery (independent), thoracic surgery, urology, vascular surgery (integrated), and vascular surgery (traditional). Operative volumes were compared between graduates from the pre-COVID-19 (2013-2019) and COVID-19 (2020-2022) periods. Linear regression analysis was used to calculate trends in operative volume. Surgical residents and fellows graduating during the COVID-19 pandemic have greater or similar case volumes, when compared with graduates from the pre-pandemic period. These data suggest that surgical training in the United States has not been compromised by COVID-19 with regard to operative experience.