Early Career Focus Among General Surgery Residents Pursuing Vascular Surgery Fellowship: A Multi-Institutional Study From the US ROPE Consortium.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-24-2025

Publication Title

The American surgeon

Abstract

BackgroundRecent studies suggest that general surgery (GS) residents perform more operations related to their future specialty compared with their peers. In this multi-institutional study, we examined the process of early specialization among GS residents pursuing a career in vascular surgery (VS).MethodsData from the US Resident OPerative Experience (ROPE) Consortium, comprising 20 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited GS residency programs across the United States, were queried. Case volume and type were compared between GS residents pursuing vs fellowship and all other residents. Effect size was evaluated using Cohen's d statistic. Effect size was considered large if d > 0.8, moderate if 0.5 ≤ d < 0.8, small if 0.2 ≤ d < 0.5, and inconsequential if d < 0.2.ResultsA total of 1343 GS residents graduated from 2010-2020 across all programs participating in ROPE, of which 135 (10.1%) pursued vs fellowship. Total major vascular case volume was significantly greater among residents pursuing vs fellowship (138 [100-207] vs 100 [80-139],

First Page

31348251399200

DOI

10.1177/00031348251399200

ISSN

1555-9823

PubMed ID

41277369

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