title: How to ensure the survival of the surgeon-scientist? The Homburg Program.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Academic surgery requires competence in research, teaching, and patient care. Because of the increasing complexity of both surgical research and clinical surgery, and additional skills necessary for adequate patient care, including economics, management, and organization, it becomes more and more difficult to provide an attractive education for surgeon-scientists. This has resulted in a dramatic decline in the number of surgeon-scientists in the past and alarms us to systematically restructure our research training system.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We herein introduce a program involving the clinical departments of surgery, trauma surgery, and cardiac-thoracic surgery as well as a surgical research institution. The program allows the clinical departments to sharpen their overall research profile and facilitates the establishment of competent working groups, guaranteeing long-term research activities on a high scientific level. The program involves both surgical residents and medical students, who will represent our future generation of academic surgeons, ensuring the survival of the surgeon-scientist.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Clinical & Experimental Surgery, Saarland University, 66421 Homburg/Saar, Germany. michael.menger@uks.eu
authors.forename: Michael D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Menger
authors.forename: Martin K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Schilling
authors.forename: Hans-Joachim
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Schäfers
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pohlemann
authors.forename: Matthias W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Laschke
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000193:education*; D002321:Career Choice; D002322:Career Mobility; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003479:Curriculum; D005180:Faculty, Medical; D013502:General Surgery / Q000193:education*; D005858:Germany; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D012586:Science / Q000193:education*; D013043:Specialties, Surgical