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Ann Thorac Surg 2003;76:1779-1781
© 2003 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

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Editorial

Help wanted

^a Department of Surgery, St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

^* Address reprint requests to Dr Lee, Department of Surgery, 3rd Floor, St. Louis University, 3635 Vista Ave at Grand Blvd, St. Louis, MO, USA 63110-0250
e-mail: leer2@slu.edu

The first 300 words of the full text of this article appear below.

In 1994, 156 US medical school graduates applied for the 146 available training positions in cardiothoracic (CT) surgery. This was the last time that the number of applicants from US medical schools exceeded the available number of positions. Since then, the number of US medical school graduates applying for CT surgery has progressively declined and now falls far short of approved residency positions [1]. The remaining positions have been filled by qualified international graduates, residents recruited outside of the match, or have been left unfilled. This has raised the question, "Why are only 100 people from US medical schools interested in entering the field of cardiothoracic surgery?"

Every recent president of the STS and AATS, including Dr Delos Cosgrove [2], Dr William Baumgartner [3], Dr Mark Orringer [1], Dr Fred Crawford [4], and Dr Timothy Gardner [5] has discussed the application decline during each of their presidential addresses. Although there are many facets to this problem, most of our thoracic surgery leaders believe that one component of the solution is to provide strong role models to potential applicants [1, 3–6]. However, role models come in many forms. These may be senior faculty, junior faculty, or our field's most direct ambassadors to potential applicants, CT surgery residents. Understanding the perspective of the CT surgery resident is vital to understanding how potential applicants view our field. Two critical issues facing CT residents are their prospects for employment and their assessment of their training experience.

In an effort to gain insight into the CT residents' view of residency training and the current job situation, the Thoracic Surgery Residents Association (TSRA) conducted a survey 2 weeks before graduation in June 2002. All available CT surgery residents were e-mailed through CTSNet. Graduating residents were asked . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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