Since the field of general surgery has become increasingly specialized over the past decades, plastic surgery has been established as a special department.
At present over three hundreds of plastic surgeons have been produced in Korea since 1974.
This change has forced plastic surgery to be involved in undergraduate surgical education. Plastic surgery residency program has been discussed several times in K.S.P.R.S, but the role of plastic surgery in undergraduate education has received little attention. Although teaching the plastic surgical residents is one of our most important roles in education, it is not the only one.
Owing to the continually expanding body of knowledge in medicine, medical students can no longer master all medical knowledge in a limited curriculum time period. This made medical educators determine the cognitive knowledge & clinical skills considered to be essential for inclusion in an undergraduate curriculum. Although several authours have discussed the role of plastic surgery in undergraduate curriculum in U.S.A. and England, we have never discussed this kind of curriculum in Korea.
A questionnaire was distributed to plastic surgery directors in 28 medical schools. We collected & compared these data about educational subjectives and objectives, credit, curriculum time period of knowledge and skills and number of staffs so on. The purpose of this study is to present the adequate level of plastic surgery education in undergraduate curriculum and help each department of plastic surgery to revise and complement plastic surgery education in undergraduate curriculum.
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