Training Tomorrow's Hand Surgeons: Clinical, Leadership, and Structural Trends in Fellowship Education.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

Hand surgery fellowships include trainees from orthopedic, plastic, and general surgery. These pathways present an opportunity to examine variations in graduate medical education structures, such as program size, sponsoring department, and leadership composition. Limited research exists on the characteristics of these programs. The purpose of this study is to assess the structural and leadership characteristics of the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education-accredited hand surgery fellowships in the United States. We hypothesized that characteristics (ie, faculty-to-fellow ratios and case volume) vary by specialty sponsorship. Leadership, although shaped by merit-based criteria, faces challenges in achieving broader demographic diversity.

Methods

A cross-

SUBMITTER: Nnamani Silva ON 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12616065 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature