• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.4-11
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• 1993

The Korean Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgical Society was founded in 1968. After the first Board Certified Examination in 1972, the Society consists of 592 members including 392 specialists [certified board members] now in 1992. Many of the great advances in cardiothoracic surgery were made by pioneering efforts of these members. The annual increment rate of certified board members in KTCSS [KTCSS Boardmen] was 11.9% which was slight greater than that of doctors [6.6%] and overall specialists [9.9%] in Korea. Their working territories were mainly urban areas [91.9%]. Some states showed regional discrepancy in supply/demand of KTCSS Boardmen. 56.1% of all [73.5% of active members] was working at a larger institute than general hospital. There were 99 institutes [41university hospitals and 58 general hospitals] and 76 private clinics where KTCSS Boardmen were employed, and more than three quarters of those institutes have less than 3 in number of KTCSS Boardmen. The rate of practicing private clinics was declined from over than 50% of the beginning to less than 30% now. We propose this survey for a basic data for specialist supply/demand and resident training program.