Partner Information
Operation Patient Access Web Banners
Show your support of quality surgical care for all by adding one of the banners below to your Web site. To add a banner, copy and paste the code below.
Surgeon Shortage Facts
Emergency department visits have increased 26 percent since 1993, and 75 percent of hospitals report inadequate on-call surgeon coverage.
American College of Emergency Physicians Survey of Emergency Department Directors, 2006
...The National Residency Match Program announced that only 91 graduating medical students and aspiring surgeons applied for 126 available training positions, leaving 35 training positions vacant. This continues a downward trend that began in 1995 when there were 200 applicants. This year marks the third consecutive year that training positions for cardiothoracic surgeons will go unfilled.
Society of Thoracic Surgeons Press Release, June 2006
Eighty-three percent of rural hospital administrators perceived their surgical program to be very important to the financial viability of their hospital and stated that they would reduce services if the hospital were to lose its surgery program. Thirty-four percent of hospitals have a surgeon leaving within the next two years and more than one-third of hospital administrators are currently searching for a surgeon.
Surgery, 2008
General surgeon to population ratios declined steadily across the study period, from 7.68 per 100,000 in 1981 to 5.69 per 100,000 in 2005. The overall number of general surgeons per 100,000 population has declined by 25.91 percent during the past 25 years.
Archives of Surgery, 143(4):345-350, 2008
“ED and Hospital Capacity Survey of 2002” found neuro, orthopaedic, general and plastic surgeons among the specialists in short supply for [emergency department] on-call panels.
Lewin Group of the American Hospital Association