Program directors in surgery agree that residents should be formally trained in business and practice management

Background Surgical residents typically receive limited exposure to business and practice management during their training. As a result, residents are ill-prepared for issues related to starting a practice, coding, collecting, and taking a meaningful role within the medical community in promoting quality and safety and in containing health care costs. With the introduction of the core competencies and the current overhaul of surgical education, we believe there is an opportunity to include business and practice management into resident training. Methods Program directors in general surgery (189 of 242) responded to a 9-question mailed survey inquiring about their opinions regarding training surgical residents in business and practice management. Results Most program directors agreed or strongly agreed (87%) that residents should be trained in business and practice management. Seventy percent believed that their current trainees were inadequately trained in this area. Over half (63%) believed that this training should begin during postgraduate years 2 to 5. Conclusions Development of simple curricula aimed at preparing surgical residents for business and practice management could promote the contemporary education of surgeons.