A Virtual Symposium Sustainably Increases the Exposure of Underrepresented Students to Neurosurgery: Future Leaders in Neurosurgery, 2021 - Present

Introduction: Over the past three years, the Future Leaders in Neurosurgery Symposium has held an annual virtual summit focused on exposing students from backgrounds underrepresented in neurosurgery to the field. We now synthesize data across symposiums to quantify the longitudinal effects of our intervention over 3 years.

Methods: An annual symposium was held over consecutive years from 2021 - 2023. The eight hour event featured didactic lectures,question and answer sessions, and exposure to the operating room setting. Participants were required to complete a pre-survey prior to the event. Post-survey completion was incentivized by receipt of a signed certificate pertaining to the event. A Wilcoxon signed-rank test was implemented in Python 3.12 to compare participant survey responses on pre- and post-surveys.

Results: Over 3 years, over 600 students have attended the symposium, with nearly 1000 expressing interest on pre-surveys. Participants hailed from 35 states and over 30 countries distributed across five continents. A total of 49 students had attended the symposium over multiple years. Participants showed significantly increased belief in their abilities to pursue careers in neurosurgery (p = 0.036 in 2021 and p = 0.021 in 2023). Students also felt significantly more familiar with the field of neurosurgery, and more connected to mentors (p=0.015 in 2021, p< 0.001 in 2022 and 2023). They also showed significantly higher belief that neurosurgery was a good field for minorities and women across every symposium (p = 0.010 in 2021, p< 0.001 in 2022 and 2023). Across each year, participants showed significantly increased exposure to Black, Latinx, and women neurosurgeons.

Conclusion : FLNSUS reproducibly increases the exposure of diverse students to the neurosurgical profession, and their willingness to pursue neurosurgery. This reproducible effect opens the door for continuing growth of this initiative, and its expansion into other surgical subspecialties.