title: Investing in medical students: which ones are worth a surgeon's time?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Little information exists on which third-year medical students will become worthy protégés.
  
  
  METHODS
  Performance and encounter metrics for 4 classes of medical students were correlated with the students who matched into a surgery residency.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall, 68 of 422 (16%) graduating seniors matched into a surgery residency. Male students were twice as likely as female students to match in surgery were, and most (81%) matching students took their general surgery rotation at the university hospital. Students who took certain elective rotations (eg, urology and orthopedics) tended to enter those surgical professions. Grades, test scores, clinical performance, oral presentation skills, and encounter data were not predictive of which students would enter the surgical profession.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  For surgeons who are willing to mentor medical students, our data suggest that currently, the selection of medical students worthy of surgeon-mentor's time will remain an art.
authors.affiliation: University of Kansas School of Medicine, Kansas City, Kansas, USA. Thomas.McLean@va.gov
authors.forename: Thomas R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: McLean
authors.forename: Chris C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Haller
authors.forename: Debra
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Deconink
mesh_terms: D002982:Clinical Clerkship; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005260:Female; D013502:General Surgery / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D008297:Male; D008611:Mentors