Studies have shown a decrease in the match rate in general medical and primary care-focused specialties among US medical school graduates and an increase in that of subspecialties with “ controllable lifestyles. ” We evaluated the percentage of Harvard Medical School graduates who matched into high-income controllable lifestyle, low-income controllable lifestyle, and noncontrollable lifestyle specialties from 1994 to 2017. Using linear regression, we found that the percentage of students matching into high-income and low-income controllable lifestyle specialties has increased over time, while those matching into noncontrollable lifestyle specialties – comprised largely of primary care fields – decreased. Such trends may impact the US physician workforce composition over time, with growth of Residency positions into fields such as internal medicine exceeding the matriculation of U. S. medical graduates into these positions. We examine whether future policies should focus on incentivizing students to pursue such noncontrollable lifestyle specialties by highlighting controllable lifestyle elements within these fields and emphasizing alternative rewards which may attract candidates to these pursuits.

Introduction: Hidden curriculum is important in medical education and has numerous, long-lasting effects on medical Residency. The present scoping review seeks to investigate, identify, and plot the main concepts relating to hidden curriculum and its dimensions, domains, impacts and factors in medical Residency courses based on the main references and evidence. Methods: Scoping review methodology was used to guide a search of electronic databases for relevant papers. Of the 394 abstracts initially identified, after screening of both abstracts and full-text papers, 43 studies were selected for inclusion in this review. Following abstraction of key information from each study, a content analysis was undertaken. Results: Eleven themes were identified from the content analysis: 1) Organizational Issues (13. 77%), 2) Socio-cultural Issues (10. 5%), 3) Professional Issues (13. 41%), 4) Communicational Factors (8. 7%), 5) Educational Issues (22. 83%), 6) Resident Personal Characteristics (21. 01%), and 7) Resident Educational Characteristics (9. 78%). Among the extracted effective hidden curriculum factors, the role modeling had the highest frequency and was emphasized in the studies. Conclusions: Although this study explained and identified the components, elements and also the preparation of the initial format of the hidden curriculum framework of the medical Residency program, its results can reduce the negative effects of the hidden curriculum on it. More extensive and in-depth studies with different qualitative methods or mixed methods related to the hidden curriculum in different contexts and disciplines of medical Residency are recommended to define characteristics of a constructive hidden curriculum of medical Residency programs.

BACKGROUND: World Health Organization declared COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, and till the month of March 2023, globally, there have been 761, 402, 282 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 6887, 000 deaths. In India, almost 44, 707, 525 cases been recorded till date. Here, almost 30, 000, 000 cases been recorded after the second wave. The working force fighting this pandemic is majority formed by resident doctors all over the country and globally. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study was conducted among 110 residents pursuing postgraduation in surgery and allied departments in various training institutions in Tamil Nadu for a duration of 6 months (after the second wave). A pretested and validated questionnaire was formulated to assess the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on surgical trainee's Residency program from their perspective. The questionnaire contained basic social-demographic details and general information like the details of surgical specialty they are admitted to, the overall details of changes in their surgical Residency experience in the times of COVID pandemic and the changes faced by them in their day-to-day clinical, diagnostic, and surgical learning. The questionnaire also investigated the redeployment status of the surgical trainees to COVID treatment units and their perspective on the changes in their clinical research and surgical skills training. RESULTS: The study participants, 66%, were aged between 25 and 30 years, followed by 30 and 35 years (25. 5%). Almost 80% of the participants belong to the final year of postgraduation,67. 3% of surgical trainees strongly perceives and all 100% of them accept the fact that their surgical Residency has been affected by the ongoing pandemic. Fifty percent of the trainees were redeployed to COVID duties for 8 h a day shift and rest attended a minimum of 4 h of COVID duties. More than 75% of the residents had COVID duties of 5–10 h/day and more than 90% of these redeployed trainees involved in COVID duties have expressed that they had been suffering from extra stress and more than 60% were suffering from stress grade between 5 and 10 suggestive of high-stress level. Fifty-nine percent of the postgraduates in the current study mentioned that they require extra-surgical or skill-based training after their postgraduation period. CONCLUSION: The influence of COVID-19 on surgical trainees in various institutions of India has been immense due to overburdening of health systems by the large population of the country. Second wave of COVID, especially, has drastically changed the postgraduate surgical trainees' lives. Detrimental effects are not restricted to operative and clinical experience but also the mental health and well-being of them. The observations of the present study make recommendations for the future provision of training through skill-based surgical simulations so that the lost days of their trainings can be compensated and they become the confident surgeons of the future.