Preparing for Surgery Observerships During Medical School: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Objective: Observerships are self-organized experiences for medical students to accompany a university affiliated physician in a clinical setting. Our study's objective was to evaluate year 1 and 2 medical students' experience with and preparation methods for surgery observerships at a Canadian medical school.

Design: A cross-sectional online survey of preclerkship students, capturing resources used to prepare for observerships, types of observerships completed, and reasons for participating. Descriptive statistics were used to report demographics, observership types, and preparation methods. Gender differences in observership types were analyzed using two-way analysis of variance.

Setting: Queen's University.

Participants: All preclerkship medical students (years 1 and 2) were invited to participate.

Results: Of the 64 respondents (64/202), 46 (71.9%) were female and 53 (82.8%) participated in at least 1 surgery observership. The most common observerships were General Surgery (53.8%, 28/53), Obstetrics and Gynecology (50.1%), and Orthopedic Surgery (37.7%). There was no significant difference between genders in the number of surgery versus nonsurgery observerships. Common reasons for participating in surgery observerships included: "may not have opportunities in the future" (52.8%) and "rule in surgery as a career" (50.9%). Majority (64.2%) of students prepared for observerships and spent on average 1.3 ± 0.6 hours preparing. Commonly used resources included class notes (82.4%), and online videos (73.5%). Most respondents (91.0%) who prepared noted preparation was associated with a positive learning experience. Most respondents (67.1%) reported a lack of resources provided on how to prepare.

Conclusions: Preparing for observerships was associated with a positive experience and most students used class notes and online videos. There was a lack of instructions and resources on how to prepare. Developing appropriate resources for pre-clerkship medical students to prepare may improve overall experiences and increase interest in surgery.