A step-by-step guide to creating an academic surgery interest group: Review article

Abstract

An academic interest group in medicine is defined as a collective that can be made up of undergraduate students, residents, and/or teachers, who share as an object of interest the advancement and growth of a specific area of medicine. It is organized to carry out extracurricular academic and research activities. It is essential to stimulate participation in these interest groups, which allow the personal and professional growth of their members, being a tool that promotes and provides better opportunities for entry as candidates for graduate studies. The American College of Surgeons is one of the largest medical scientific societies with the participation of undergraduate students with an interest in surgery. This society mentions the benefits of participating in interest groups in surgery, specifically, it highlights the importance of contributing to these when looking for a surgical specialty, because they address issues such as: what is the mentioned specialty itself?, what are the details about the application process for each surgical specialty?, these groups can provide information on different residency programs, lifestyle benefits, and/or cons; in addition to improving practical skills through surgical technique workshops or various organized activities. Based on the above, the objective of this manuscript is to design a Step-by-step guide for the creation of a surgical interest group, in order to encourage participation by medical students, residents, and teachers in the research and academic field.

Participation of Latin American surgeons in Twitter using the hashtag #SoMe4Surgery and #SoMe4IQLatAm

“…The practice of medicine is defined as the "set of knowledge and techniques applied to the prediction, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human diseases and, where appropriate, to the rehabilitation of the consequences that may occur" [ 3 ]. Surgeons must have an intensive academic preparation; years of study and practice; and interaction with teachers, patients, colleagues, professional associations, and networks.…”

“…Interactions: The effectiveness of your social media campaigns at fostering positive engagement. Interaction: A communication between an audience member and your brand's social profile [ [1] , [2] , [3] ].…”

“…Over time, technology and digital tools have become an indispensable part of the academic and professional development [ 1 ]. In medicine, social networks contribute to the professional training because it is a way to improve the knowledge and skills of students, residents, and specialists; additionally, these networks allow the dissemination of studies, publications, conferences, and clinical cases and interaction with other colleagues [ [2] , [3] , [4] , [5] , [6] , [7] ]. Particularly, among the contributions of social networks to surgical medical education are mentoring, globalization, generation of a digital educational platform, virtual simulation of procedures, research and collaboration, information access, and training opportunities [ 8 , 9 ].…”

Pre-operative factors associated with short- and long-term outcomes in the patient with inguinal hernia: What does the current evidence say?

“…Inguinal hernia is one of the most frequent surgical pathologies in the world, and although numerous techniques have been described over the years, in third world countries the same traditional techniques and tools are still used, which do not favor the improvement of functional outcomes. More clinical and translational research in surgery is needed to facilitate the significance of inguinal hernia management and improve the quality of evidence sufficiently to determine with certainty which recommendations can be extrapolated to global surgery [ 52 , 53 ].…”

Surgical research in Colombia part 1: Scientific and academic productivity of the Colombian research groups in surgery

“…Global surgery has become the undisputed starting point for addressing a myriad of problems in surgery today, from seeking access to specialized services for the care of surgical diseases that generate a high burden of disease, to improving the quality of surgical evidence, and to promoting surgical education and practice [ [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] , [5] , [6] ]. Despite the emphasis of the 2030 global surgery targets set by The Lancet commission for global surgery in 2015, barriers have persisted over the years with respect to scientific output and improvement in available evidence, mainly in middle- and low-income countries [ 3 , 6 ].…”