Campos-Campos F

Language: Spanish
References: 0
Page: 56-61
PDF size: 74.39 Kb.

ABSTRACT

The Consejo Mexicano de Cirugía General was founded in 1977. It applied the first certification test in 1979. Ten years later, it established the recertification for previously certified surgeons, which is performed every five years.
Objective: To inform the results obtained during three years of evaluation of the records of surgeons requesting recertification.
Method: Data contained in the records of all surgeons requesting recertification in the 3-year period of 1996-1999 were analyzed. Descriptive statistics were applied to the data using central tendency and dispersion measures, 95% confidence intervals, and variance analysis.
Results: Two-hundred-forty-three records of surgeons with an average age of 43.3 ± 8.04 years were analyzed. The highest number of candidates came from the Federal District and the State of Mexico (Metropolitan area) with 37%, most work at the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS, for its initials in Spanish) followed by private practicing surgeons; 86.4% of the surgeons were recertified with an average score of 135.5 points (minimum needed was 75). Analysis by institution showed that 100% of the surgeons from the ISSSTE (Social Security Institute for Government Employees) and the Ministry of Defense were recertified. Those practicing in university hospitals and privately obtained the highest scores. No differences in scores were found between private practicing and institutional surgeons in regard to curriculum scores, but the latter scored higher in teaching.
Conclusion: Most of the surgeons that request recertification work in the Metropolitan area of Mexico City, and belong to the IMSS. Curricular scores depict a wide spectrum. Surgeons working in public institutions scored higher in teaching, however those surgeons practicing only private medicine scored high enough to comply with the recertification requirements. Scores regarding publications and research were low in the whole group.