title: Will there be a good general surgeon when you need one? (Part II) Solutions and taking back general surgery.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Multiple reports have cited the looming shortage of physicians over the next decades related to increasing demand, an aging of the population, and a stagnant level in the production of new physicians. General surgery shares in this problem, and the specialty is "stressed" by a declining workforce related to increasing specialization that leaves gaps in emergency, trauma, and rural surgical care.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The Society of Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT) Public Policy and Advocacy Committee sponsored panel discussions regarding the general surgery workforce shortage at the Digestive Disease Week 2012 and 2013 meetings. The 2012 panel focused on defining the problem. This is the summation of the series with the solutions to the general surgery workforce shortage as offered by the 2013 panel.
authors.affiliation: Tripler Army Medical Center, Honolulu, HI, USA.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Steven C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Stain
authors.forename: David W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: McFadden
authors.forename: Samuel R G
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Finlayson
authors.forename: Daniel B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.forename: K Marie
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Reid-Lombardo
mesh_terms: D002321:Career Choice; D003226:Congresses as Topic; D005260:Female; D013502:General Surgery / Q000193:education; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012955:Societies, Medical; D066231:Surgeons / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D014481:United States; D000078329:Workforce
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