Introduction: Information about the education, training and future employment prospects of Icelandic surgeons has not been available.

Materials and methods: The study included all Icelandic surgeons, in all subspecialties, educated at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Iceland. Information on specialty training, higher academic degrees and in which country these were obtained was collected. Future employment prospects were analysed by calculating supply and demand until the year 2025. Approximations, such as sustained demand for surgeons per capita, were used.

Results: Out of 237 licensed surgeons, two thirds were living in Iceland and 36 were retired. Majority (69.2%) had been trained in Sweden and orthopaedic (26.9%) and general surgery (23.9%) were the most common subspecialties. The average age of surgeons in Iceland was 52 years and 44 years for surgeons abroad. Females were 8% of surgeons in Iceland while being 17.4% among 36 doctors in surgical training overseas. Over 19% had received a PhD degree. Predictions suggest that supply and demand for surgeons in Iceland will be equal in the year 2025, not taking into account the prospects for the working market outside Iceland.

Conclusion: A third of Icelandic surgeons live outside Iceland. The proportion of female surgeons is low but it is increasing. Our predictions indicate a balanced work market for surgeons in Iceland for the next 15 years. However, there are many uncertainty factors in the calculations and they do not predict the prospects for individual subspecialties.

Table I. The country of employment of 273 Icelandic surgeons, Sept. 1st, 2008. Junior surgical residents in Iceland are excluded. (Number of patients, mean, and %).

Table II.  Age distribution of 237 practicing Icelandic surgeons, Sept. 1st, 2008, working in Iceland and abroad. Retired surgeons are excluded while surgical residents abroad are included. (Number of patients).

Table III. Surgical specialties of Icelandic surgeons, Sept. 1st, 2008. Only the main speciality is included for each surgeon. Retired surgeons are excluded (Number and % in parenthesis).

Table IV.  The country of specialty training of 237 Icelandic surgeons, Sept. 1st, 2008. Only one country is included for each surgeon. Surgical residents are not included. (Number and % in parenthesis).

Fig. 1.  The workplace of 138 surgeons working in Iceland, Sept. 1st, 2008. (Number of surgeons in parenthesis).

Fig. 2. Higher academic degrees of 238 Icelandic surgeons, Sept. 1st, 2008.  Specialists residing abroad but working temporarily in Iceland are not included. (Number of surgeons in parenthesis).

Fig. 3.  Estimated supply and demand for surgeons in Iceland from 2008 to 2025 (see text for details about approximations).

Fig. 4. A graph depicting the predicted amount of surgeons in Iceland and abroad, available to the Icelandic health care system from 2008 to 2025. The calculations are based on approximations (see text for detail).