Exploring the surgical personality

Surgery is a demanding field, requiring determination and emotional stability. This review explores the surgical personality, addressing international personality differences between surgical and non-surgical specialties. Across the globe, surgically-interested individuals (i.e., medical students, residents, surgeons) generally scored higher on conscientiousness, open mindedness, and extraversion, and lower on neuroticism compared to non-surgically-interested contemporaries. Extraversion was inversely correlated to burnout in surgical residents and open mindedness to reduced competence in giving feedback. Although additional region- and/or country-specific research is warranted, being or becoming a surgeon appears to correlate to personality traits such as high conscientiousness and low neuroticism. •The act of being or becoming a surgeon demands particular levels of determination and emotional stability, reflected in traits such as high conscientiousness and low neuroticism across the globe.•Societal and cultural structures can be an important factor in defining the surgical personality and its manifestation in time.•The identification of specific personality traits, placed in a socio-cultural context, can contribute to improved understanding of aptitude and wellbeing of surgeons.