Male medical students’ perception of plastic surgery and its relationship with their cultural factors

OBJECTIVES: This study is an attempt to establish the knowledge of the medical students on the specialty of plastic surgery, in addition, to know their opinions about its relationship with their cultural factors. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study; participants invited randomly from the college of medicine at King Khaled University to fill a questionnaire consisted of 20 questions regarding the basic knowledge, attitude, perception, and understanding of plastic surgery and its subspecialties. RESULTS: Medical student participated in our study; their perception towards plastic surgery specialty was positive as they believed that this is a specialty as any other medical specialties; Out of 201 (45.6%), 81 (18.4%) assured plastic surgery is a good specialty. The biggest concerns about joining to cosmetic surgery were a difficulty of accepting in this specialty (34.9%). There is a significant relationship between the plastic surgery and cultural factors (P < 0.05). On other hand, there is no significant relation between choosing plastic surgery specialist among medical students and community overview about plastic surgery specialty (P = 0.15). CONCLUSION: Despite the confession of the importance of plastic surgery between Saudi medical students, a large portion of them refuses plastic surgeons due to cultural factors. Increasing knowledge of plastic surgery subspecialties deserves attention.