Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic impacted multiple aspects of surgical education. This survey delineates steps taken by general surgery residency programs to meet changing patient-care needs while continuing to provide adequate education.
Methods: A survey was administered to program directors and coordinators of all United States general surgery residency programs to assess the early effects of the pandemic on residents from March 1 through May 31, 2020.
Results: Of 303 programs contacted, 132 (43.6%) completed the survey. Residents were asked to work in areas outside of their specialty at 27.3% of programs. Residency curriculum was changed in 35.6% of programs, and 76.5% of programs changed their academic conferences. Resident schedules were altered at a majority of programs to limit resident-patient exposure, increase ICU coverage, or improve resident utilization. Surgical caseloads decreased at 93.8% of programs; 31.8% of those programs reported concerns regarding residents' achieving the minimum case numbers required to graduate.
Conclusions: These results provided insight into the restructuring of general surgery residency programs during a pandemic and may be used to establish future pandemic response plans.
Keywords: COVID-19; case volume; curriculum; general surgery; internship and residency; pandemic.
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