Abstract
Introduction
The Fellowship Council (FC) oversees 172 non-ACGME surgical fellowships offering 211 fellowship positions per year. These training programs cover multiple specialties including Advanced gastrointestinal (GI), Advanced GI/MIS, Bariatric, Hepatopancreaticobiliary (HPB), Flexible Endoscopy, Colorectal, and Thoracic Surgery. Although some data have been published detailing the practice environments (i.e., urban vs. rural) and yearly total case volumes of FC alumni, there is a lack of granular data regarding the practice patterns of FC graduates. The aim of this study was to gather detailed data on the specific case types performed and surgical approaches employed by recent FC alumni.
Methods
A 21-item survey covering 64 data points was emailed to 835 FC alumni who completed their fellowship between 2013 and 2017. Email addresses were obtained from FC program directors and FC archives.
Results
We received 327 responses (39% response rate). HPB, Advanced Colorectal, and Advanced Thoracic alumni appear to establish practices focused on their respective fields. Graduates from Advanced GI, Adv GI/MIS, and Bariatric programs appear to build practices with a mix of several complex GI case types including bariatrics, colorectal, foregut, HPB, and hernia cases.
Conclusions
This is the first large data set to provide granular information on the practice patterns of FC alumni. FC trained surgeons perform impressive volumes of complex procedures, and minimally invasive approaches are extremely prevalent in these practices. Further, many graduates carve out practices with large footprints in robotics and endoscopy.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the FC program directors and administrative staff who assisted in gathering contact information for and advertising the project to recent alumni. Without the help from so many people, this survey would not have been a success.
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Yumi Hori is employed as the Executive Director of the Fellowship Council. Vanessa Cheung is employed as an Administrative Coordinator at the Fellowship Council.Drs. Weis, Alseidi, Jeyarajah, Schweitzer, and Scott have no financial disclosures related to the content of this study.
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Weis, J.J., Alseidi, A.A., Jeyarajah, D.R. et al. Providing complex GI surgical care with minimally invasive approaches: a survey of the practice patterns of Fellowship Council alumni. Surg Endosc 34, 1776–1784 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00464-019-06929-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00464-019-06929-1