Integrating Grassroots Advocacy Into the Academic Surgical Conference: A Bottom-Up Model to Inspire Future Surgeons

Development and Evaluation of a Presenter Coaching Program at an Academic Surgical Conference.

Gender Disparity in Pediatric Surgery: An Evaluation of Pediatric Surgery Conference Participation

BackgroundPresentation at academic conferences is an important marker of research productivity. However, not all accepted abstracts progress to full publication, and there is anecdotal evidence suggesting an imbalance in sex and ethnicity amongst presenters. There is a lack of data evaluating the outcome of prize presentation sessions at academic surgical conferences in the UK. This study aimed to analyse the outcomes and demographics from presentations at prize sessions at two prestigious UK surgical conferences.MethodsThis retrospective observational study compared data on all Moynihan (Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland) and Patey (Surgical Research Society) prize presentations from 2000 to 2020. The primary outcome was rate of publication. Secondary outcomes included demographic differences in sex and ethnicity, publication according to prize outcome, academic affiliation, time to publication, and journal impact factor.ResultsSome 442 accepted abstracts were identified over the 21-year period, with 71.0% from the Moynihan sessions and 79.3% from the Patey sessions leading to full publications, with a median time to publication of 448 days (IQR 179–859) in journals with relatively high impact factors (median 5.00; IQR 3.15–6.36). Of the 442 prize presenters, 85 (19.2%) were female. The majority of the presenters were White males (211, 47.7%), followed by Asian males (112, 25.3%). However, there was a continuously increasing overall trend of female presenters from 2000 to 2020 (P = 0.019).ConclusionPublication rates from the two prize sessions were high, with presenters publishing in journals with high impact factors. There, however, was a disparity in sex and ethnicity amongst presenters.

This article's aim to describe the impact of COVID-19 crisis on surgical training and trainees, and the potential long-term effects of the pandemics on the specialist training programmes globally Due to COVID-19 pandemic being prioritized, trainees are called to help support the increased workload of the hospital units and emergency department Caring for patients is our primary role It is important to be ready to forgo previously conceived ideas of defined roles and be able to adapt to a fast-evolving scenario Of note, in some countries like Spain, Italy, Portugal, and the United Kingdom, recently graduated medical students are being appointed to join health forces at an earlier stage in their career, to face the overwhelming COVID-19 emergency More importantly, some governments decided to maintain the status of "junior doctors" or trainees for those who were due to complete their training programme during the COVID-19 outbreak Many trainees felt that a more appropriate policy would have been to allow them graduating, and then appoint them as consultants It is difficult to draw conclusions on this in the context of an emergency, but this should be considered in the future and pathways of conduct should be defined at the time of developing surgical training programmes Surgical trainees are at the frontline of many hospitals In most cases, they are being required to provide medical support during the crisis As future surgeons, their careers are likely to be affected by the COVID-19 outbreak in several ways Once COVID-19 emergency is settled, revision of the training programmes to include the critical issues raised during the crisis is desirable, globally Finally, only through the efforts of all team members including consultants as trainers, trainees, and other health workers we are going to be able to overcome COVID-19 pandemic

Gender Equity at Surgical Conferences: Quantity and Quality

Gender equity is a prominent issue in the medical profession. Representation of female physicians at academic meetings has been identified as an important component of gender equity; however, this topic has not been systematically assessed. To determine the trend during the last decade in the proportion of speakers who were women at major academic medical conferences held in Canada and in the United States. A cross-sectional analysis was conducted examining the gender of speakers listed in meeting programs of medical conferences held in Canada and in the United States in 2007 and from 2013 through 2017. Eligible conferences were identified using a sensitive search strategy, and a previously validated tool was used to analyze each meeting speaker list and to assign a proportion of female speakers. Conferences held in English language, hosted in Canada or the United States, and targeted to a physician audience with 100 or more attendees were included. The comparison group was active physicians in Canada and in the United States. The mean of the proportion of female speakers at each conference per year. In total, 181 conferences with 701 individual meetings were analyzed, including 100 medical and 81 surgical specialty conferences. The proportion of women ranged from 0% to 82.6% of all speakers. The mean (SD) proportion of female conference speakers for all meetings analyzed significantly increased from 24.6% (14.6%) for 40 meetings in 2007 to 34.1% (15.1%) for 181 meetings in 2017 (P < .001). The mean proportion of female speakers at medical specialty conferences was 9.8% higher (SE, 1.9%; P < .001) than the mean proportion of female speakers at surgical specialty conferences for all years analyzed. The mean proportion of female speakers at conferences was similar to the mean proportion of active female physicians across all specialties in the United States and in Canada for all years analyzed. Although our findings indicate that the proportion of female speakers at medical conferences increased during the last decade, women continue to be underrepresented. Speaker invitation and selection at conferences represent important opportunities to influence gender equity within medicine.

During medical school, students have numerous opportunities to develop their portfolios for a career in surgery, such as undertaking additional surgical placements and participating in surgical research. However, at present, there is little guidance available for medical students on how to build a strong portfolio for the UK core surgical training application. This article outlines work undertaken to provide concise guidance to support future surgeons, via application of the competency-based CanMEDS framework to the current UK core surgical training specification. A pre-conference meeting was arranged for medical students at the Society of Academic and Research Surgeons annual conference in January 2018. Self-selected research enthusiasts from different university years discussed practical approaches to pair the CanMEDS model with the core surgical training specification, with support from the STARSurg Collaborative committee to facilitate discussion. A nominal group-based method was adopted in order to reach areas of consensus. Practical tips and recommendations for each respective CanMEDS domain (communicator, collaborator, leader, health advocate, scholar, professional) were made in relation to the core surgical training specification. These included key action points and named opportunities that are currently available to UK medical students. A consensus approach was taken to address key areas of competence across each CanMEDS domain. This informed the development of a guidance framework to support students to develop a strong portfolio for a core surgical training application. This framework can be followed by medical students, equipping them with the skills necessary to succeed in their future surgical career.

The Trauma Research Associates Program (T-RAP) for Undergraduate Students: Shaping Future Academic Surgeons

Academic meetings serve as an opportunity to present and discuss novel ideas. Previous studies have identified factors predictive of publication without generating predictive models. Machine learning (ML) presents a novel tool capable of generating these models. As such, the objective of this study was to use ML models to predict subsequent publication of abstracts presented at a major surgical conference. Database study. All abstracts from the North American Spine Society (NASS) annual general meetings (AGM) from 2013-2015 were reviewed. The following information was extracted: number of authors, institution, location, conference category, subject category, study type, data collection methodology, human subject research, and FDA approval. Abstracts were then searched on the PubMed, Google Scholar, and Scopus databases for publication. ML models were trained to predict whether the abstract would be published or not. Quality of models was determined by using the area under the receiver operator curve (AUC). The top ten most important factors were extracted from the most successful model during testing. A total of 1119 abstracts were presented, with 553 (49%) abstracts published. During training, the model with the highest AUC and accuracy metrics was the partial least squares (AUC of 0.77±0.05, accuracy of 75.5%±4.7%). During testing, the model with the highest AUC and accuracy was the random forest (AUC of 0.69, accuracy of 67%). The top ten features for the random forest model were (descending order): number of authors, year, conference category, subject category, human subjects research, continent, and data collection methodology. This was the first study attempting to use ML to predict the publication of complete articles after abstract presentation at a major academic conference. Future studies should incorporate deep learning frameworks, cognitive/results-based variables and aim to apply this methodology to larger conferences across other fields of medicine to improve the quality of works presented.

Academic conferences typically rely on traditional lectures, which limit learner engagement. A national surgical conference recently implemented a novel session format "Breakshops," which focused on small group instruction (SGI). We assessed participants' perceptions of these sessions, as well as instructional quality and interactivity. Breakshops were implemented at the 2024 American Pediatric Surgical Association (APSA) annual meeting. Each 45-minute concurrent workshop was intended for a few dozen participants and incorporated SGI rather than slide-based presentations. Sessions were proposed, designed, and facilitated by attendees. We performed a convergent parallel mixed-methods analysis. Semi-structured interviews of participants were recorded, transcribed, inductively coded, and thematically analyzed. Quantitative data were collected from surveys of participants assessing satisfaction and perceived value and Program Committee members assessing SGI feature use and learner interactivity. Thirty-one (70.5%) of 44 Breakshops were assessed by the Program Committee. From sixteen interviews and corresponding quantitative results, three themes emerged. First, Breakshops were a unique and valued addition to conference programming, reflected in a mean satisfaction score of 8.1 of 10 and 96.3% of 895 ratings deeming "Valuable" or "Somewhat Valuable." Second, Breakshops enhanced active learning, with increased use of SGI features correlating with greater interaction (p = 0.01) and value (p = 0.04). Third, there were opportunities to refine Breakshop implementation at a programmatic level. Small group workshops which emphasize interaction and active learning enhanced learner engagement and provided unique value at the 2024 APSA conference. Their broader adoption should be considered to improve conference learning experiences.

The value of medical student specific journals and surgical conferences to future surgeons