133 Neurosurgery Education in The Medical School Curriculum: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Introduction Worldwide, there is no specific medical school curriculum in neurosurgery despite a high burden of neurosurgical disease that is often assessed, investigated and managed by generalists. This scoping review was carried out to map available evidence pertaining to the provision of neurosurgery education in the medical school curriculum across the world. Method This review was conducted in accordance to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis extension for Scoping Reviews. Results Ten studies were included. Six were from the United Kingdom, two from the United States, and one each from Canada and Ireland. Two studies evaluated perceptions of both medical students and practicing clinicians, five studies evaluated the perceptions of medical students and three studies reported perceptions of clinicians only. Three main themes were identified. Neurosurgery was perceived as an important part of the general medical student curriculum. Exposure to neurosurgery teaching was varied but when received, deemed useful and students were keen to receive more. Interest in a neurosurgical career amongst medical students was high. Conclusions There is a lack of a specialty-specific medical school curriculum and variability of medical students’ exposure to neurosurgery teaching exists. Our findings highlight the need to systematically assess specialty-specific teaching and determine adequacy.