Training neurosurgeons in China

摘要

In their Correspondence, Norton and colleagues1 remarked that neurosurgery should be an attractive option for the best medical students, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. However, this might not be the case in China. Because of the skills and knowledge that neurosurgical departments demand, recruitment of students is not easy. For example, in some institutions, neurosurgery students had a lower admission score than those in other clinical specialties, such as orthopaedics and cardiology.2, 3 Data from the Beijing Institute of Neurosurgery, Beijing, China, and Department of Neurosurgery, The First Clinical Medicine College, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China, also show that many students apply to other departments and switch to neurosurgery only after not being accepted for their first choice. We believe that the long training period, low wages, and heterogeneity of clinical performance across different hospitals might discourage the best candidates from a career in this field.