Cutting Through Stereotypes: A Scoping Review of Preclinical Medical Student Perceptions of Surgery

Medical students enter clerkships with preconceived notions of the culture, attitudes, and behavior of surgeons and the field of surgery. These preconceived notions may contribute to student anxiety regarding surgery clerkship and ultimately influence career exploration. With the pervasive changes in the surgical workplace over the past 2 decades, we seek to understand the current state of the literature regarding medical students' perceptions of the surgical clerkship, surgeons, and the field of surgery.

A comprehensive literature review was performed using the electronic databases Medline, Scopus, and Web of Science. We included studies involving US allopathic preclinical medical student perceptions of surgical education, surgery as a field of medicine, and surgeons as physicians. Following the PRISMA guidelines for scoping reviews, 2316 abstracts were identified, and 25 studies were included.

We included 25 studies and collected 3 broad student perspectives: student perceptions of surgeons, the surgical clerkship, and surgery as a career. The review identified relevant themes within each perspective. Themes included work life balance, student mistreatment, student education, racial and sexual minority acceptance, competitiveness, and anxiety regarding the surgery clerkship.

The results of this review suggest that preclinical medical students have overall negative perceptions of surgery, surgeons, and the surgical clerkship, but the origins of these perceptions remain unclear. Understanding the preconceived notions of preclinical students may lead to earlier interventions that could prevent negative stereotypes directed toward surgeons and surgery as a field.