Business knowledge in surgeons.
BACKGROUND
Surgeons and residents in training receive little, if any, formal education in the economic side of clinical practice during medical school or residency. As medical professionals face shrinking reimbursement, loss of control over health care decisions, and limited resources, surgical specialties must reevaluate the need to teach their members business survival skills. Before designing business related-teaching modules, educators must know the exact gaps in knowledge that exist among surgeons.


METHODS
This article reports a survey of 133 surgeons in the Midwest who were asked to rate their knowledge base in 11 business topics relevant to the practice of medicine.


RESULTS
The survey showed that the average surgeon perceives himself or herself to be poorly equipped to understand basic financial accounting principles, financial markets, economics of health care, tools for evaluating purchases, marketing, budgets, antitrust and fraud and abuse regulations, and risk and return on investments.


CONCLUSIONS
Armed with this data, teaching faculty, health care systems, and medical specialty societies should design business education seminars to better position surgical specialists and trainees to communicate with insurers, hospital administrators, health care organizations, and their own personal financial advisors.
Satiani
Bhagwan
B
Division of Vascular Surgery, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus 43210-1250, USA. Satiani-1@medctr.osu.edu
D000066:Accounting; D016363:Antitrust Laws; D003132:Commerce / Q000193:education*; D003625:Data Collection; D005376:Financial Management; D005607:Fraud / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D013502:General Surgery / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D015146:Midwestern United States; D011216:Practice Management, Medical / Q000191:economics*; D011361:Professional Competence