Assessing Brazilian Medical Student Awareness About Global Surgery: A Survey-Based Study

Background: Global surgery is an interdisciplinary field that advocates for access to equitable, affordable surgical services for all people. Engaging medical students in the field can strengthen the surgical workforce in low-and middle-income countries. We aim to investigate Brazilian medical students' acknowledgment of global surgery and their preferred learning platforms. Materials and Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study through an anonymous Portuguese survey on Google Forms, consisting of 30 mixed multiple-choice and five-point Likert scale questions. Students enrolled in a Brazilian medical school from the second to sixth academic year fulfilled inclusion criteria. The association between qualitative variables was assessed using Chi-square, Fisher's exact test, or binary logistic model. Rsults: We received 1,345 responses from 208 medical schools. Only 20.9% (282/1,345) of participants reported awareness of global surgery, who were predominantly female. 96.5% (1,298/1,345) declared interest in knowing more about global surgery and participants indi cated social media (71.6%, 202/282) as the prevalent manner to gain awareness on it, followed by webinars (63.5%, 179/282). Extracurricular classes were the most preferable option among students (61.4%, 827/1,345) to get acquainted with the field, followed by internships (59.4%, 812/1,345), workshops (57%, 767/1,345), and social media (53.4%, 730/1,345). The main obstacles to pursue a global surgery career were lack of national opportunities (32%, 431/1,345) and adequate training (25.4%, 341/1,345). Conclusion: We outlined the most strategic pathways to raising awareness on global surgery among Brazilian medical students, providing relevant insights on its education in similar settings. (c) 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Only around one-fifth of Brazilian medical students are aware of global surgery, with a preference for gaining knowledge through social media and webinars. Extracurricular classes and internships are the most preferred options for students to familiarize themselves with the field, highlighting the importance of national opportunities and adequate training as potential obstacles to pursuing a career in global surgery.