[DELETED]

[NLengr]

2 hours ago, blah1234 said:

That's very interesting to hear. Whenever I brought up my average technical abilities my surgical preceptors and senior residents always said that they could teach a monkey to operate and that the decision making of when to operate was much more difficult to teach and the more important skill. 

This is also my belief. 

I knew some residents (in other programs, not my own), who probably shouldn't have been able to be surgeons and in every case it was because of a inability to make proper cognitive decisions, not because of lack of technical skill. 

I wish the GP option still existed like someone mentioned above. It would give people so much more flexibility to get out of crappy jobs/no jobs. I would certainly strongly consider closing my current surgical practice and working as a GP right now (either part time with occasional locums till a better surgical job comes up, or permenantly). 

[Bambi]

In my surgical specialty, the job market changes every year, depending upon the circumstances in the hospitals in my area. It is meaningless to look down the road several years as a result. 

[indefatigable]

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[Edict]

12 hours ago, blah1234 said:

That's very interesting to hear. Whenever I brought up my average technical abilities my surgical preceptors and senior residents always said that they could teach a monkey to operate and that the decision making of when to operate was much more difficult to teach and the more important skill.

I'm not sure how we can test for willingness to bear hardship. I would argue for many medical and surgical specialties the amount of sacrifice someone has to make during residency (and possibly staff life) is just inconceivable by undergrad students. Even my peers and I who worked as other professionals before medicine were shocked by the working conditions during our training. 

Yes, i've heard the same as well from surgeons, but i think the notion that they can teach anyone to operate is true, but there are still people who are better than others, just like we can teach anyone to play soccer, there are some who are going to be better at soccer than others. Spending 5 hours teaching someone surgery may result in different skill levels.

The notion of technical skill is likely going to be more important in certain operations over others, so it is possible that in many surgical specialties this really is their belief. However, by the end of training, you will find some residents will be known for their operative skills more than others and this will have likely been a combination of mentorship, opportunities, talent etc. 

I agree that willingness to bear hardship is hard to really test. You don't really know if you are able to handle it without really just doing it unforunately. This may be why in some countries you do an internship or junior surgical year or two that give you a sense without really holding you back. The issue mainly with the current system is that transferring isn't always easy and you often have to restart training. Theres pros and cons to either approach for sure though. 

[yonas]

On 2/18/2019 at 4:28 AM, Bambi said:

In my surgical specialty, the job market changes every year, depending upon the circumstances in the hospitals in my area. It is meaningless to look down the road several years as a result. 

What specialty is that if you do not mind me asking. 

[Bambi]

10 hours ago, yonas said:

What specialty is that if you do not mind me asking. 

Sorry.