surgeons on paper, but often relegated to outpatient or ward activities. When they finally do operating room tasks, they rarely do so as the first surgeon and more often than not only in the simplest cases. This is the professional situation of Italian surgeons according to a study promoted by Women in Surgery Italia and published in Updates in Surgery.
The research involved over 1,800 surgeons working in Italian hospitals, a rather varied sample that included from postgraduates to professionals with many years of experience, training abroad and additional qualifications after specialization.
According to the survey, 35% of the interviewees had to abandon surgery to some extent in favor of outpatient services. Overall, the phenomenon of under-use in the operating room is however wider: more than half of the surgeons involved in the survey report that they dedicate at least 50% of their time to non-surgical activities (outpatient services, ward, etc.), even if you would like to spend less time on such activities.
“In Italy, finishing postgraduate school and becoming a surgeon does not mean actually becoming a surgeon, even if that is what you aspire to,” says Gaya Spolverato, a surgeon oncologist at the University Hospital of Padua and one of the authors of the study. “Many of us have the title, but we are in clinical practice and not in the operating room,” she adds.
The complainant surgeons also discriminated against: 61% of the interviewees stated that they were treated ‘differently’ in the professional field because of their gender; specifically, 50% believe they enjoy “a lower general consideration” than their colleagues, 47% have “less chance of being promoted” and 44% enjoy ‘less tutoring / teaching’.
The minor consideration is reflected in the activity carried out in the operating room: the surgeons intervene as the first operator in 8.4% of high complexity cases but 17% of low complexity ones.
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