Medical students' awareness and interest in pursuing future career in plastic surgery: a cross-sectional online pilot study.

[BACKGROUND] Plastic surgery is an evolving surgical specialty, which has areas of overlap with other specialties in surgery. Common misunderstandings about the discipline are found among the general public, medical professionals and medical students. Many students who are aware of the specialty lack good knowledge about its scope. Such poor knowledge can impact negatively on the recruitment of residents to plastic surgery and it can also affect the correct referral of plastic surgery cases to the specialist.

[OBJECTIVES] This study aimed to assess medical students' knowledge about the scope of plastic surgery and their interest in pursuing future career in the specialty. It also aimed to know the factors responsible for the students' interest or non-interest in the speciality.

[METHODOLOGY] A cross-sectional online study done among 223 medical students in Nigeria. Google forms were forwarded to the respondents through WhatsApp and e-mail. The study population were 200 level to 600 level medical students spread across state, federal and private universities in Nigeria. The data was analysed using SPSS 22.0. The variables were represented as numbers and percentages. The level of significance was set at 0.05.

[RESULTS] Two hundred and seventeen (97.3%) of the students were aware of plastic and reconstructive surgery speciality but only 15% of the total respondents were interested in specializing in plastic surgery. The determinants of interest in plastic surgery included the respondents' school year, intention to undergo cosmetic surgery in the future and following of plastic surgery shows on Television. The procedure most commonly associated with plastic surgery by the students was burns management (95.1%). The determinants of the knowledge of plastic surgery procedures were previous formal lectures on plastic surgery and the presence of full-time plastic surgeon in the teaching hospital.

[CONCLUSION] The perception of the work of a plastic surgeon is dependent on exposure to the speciality and a decline in teaching may perpetuate misunderstanding of the work carried out by plastic surgeons.