Neurosurgery Elective for Preclinical Medical Students: Early Exposure and Changing Attitudes

Objective Exposure to surgical subspecialties is limited during the preclinical years of medical school. To offset this limitation, the authors created a neurosurgery elective for first- and second-year medical students. The objective was to provide each student with early exposure to neurosurgery by combining clinical experience with faculty discussions about the academic and personal realities of a career in neurosurgery. Methods From 2012 to 2013, the authors offered a neurosurgery elective course to first- and second-year medical students. Each class consisted of the following: 1) peer-reviewed article analysis; 2) student presentation; 3) faculty academic lecture; 4) faculty personal lecture with question and answer period. Results Thirty-five students were enrolled over a 2-year period. After completing the elective, students were more likely to: consider neurosurgery as a future career ( P < 0.0001), perceive the personalities of attending physicians to be more collegial and friendly ( P = 0.0002), perceive attending quality of life to be higher ( P < 0.0001), and believe it was achievable to be a neurosurgeon and have a family ( P < 0.0001). The elective did not alter students' perceived difficulty of training ( P = 0.7105). Conclusions The neurosurgery elective course significantly increased student knowledge across several areas and changed perceptions about collegiality, quality of life, and family–work balance, while not altering the students' views about the difficulty of training. Adopting a neurosurgery elective geared towards preclinical medical students can significantly change attitudes about the field of neurosurgery and has potential to increase interest in pursuing a career in neurosurgery.