abdoalsir/ophthalmology-career-decisions-sudan-2025

Cross-sectional study of barriers and factors influencing postgraduate career decisions among N=135 ophthalmology residents and ophthalmologists in Sudan during armed conflict (2025); binary and ordinal logistic regression using IBM SPSS v26. # Barriers and Factors Influencing Postgraduate Career Decisions Among Ophthalmology Residents and Ophthalmologists in Sudan ## Sudan Medical Specialization Board – 2025 **Study type:** Cross-sectional, institution-based descriptive study **Degree level:** Clinical MD in Ophthalmology (Sudan Medical Specializations Board) **Institution:** SMSB Ophthalmology Council — training centers and teaching hospitals, Sudan **Sample size:** N = 136 ophthalmology residents and ophthalmologists **Data analyst:** Abdulrahman Sirelkhatim --- ## Background Ophthalmology is a procedure-intensive specialty sitting at the intersection of surgery and chronic disease management. At least 2.2 billion people globally live with vision impairment or blindness, with at least one billion having conditions that remain unaddressed — a burden that underscores the urgent need for an adequate and well-distributed ophthalmic workforce. In low-income settings, shortages and maldistribution of ophthalmologists are persistent; in sub-Saharan Africa, training capacity has grown but remains constrained by infrastructure, faculty numbers, and access to subspecialty exposure. Sudan's postgraduate training ecosystem is nationally coordinated by the Sudan Medical Specialization Board (SMSB), which oversees residency curricula and examinations across specialties including ophthalmology. Since the outbreak of armed conflict in April 2023, Sudan's health system has experienced severe disruption: attacks on healthcare facilities, displacement of trainees and faculty, collapsed training rotations, and accelerating migration intentions among clinicians. These shocks compound pre-existing structural challenges and fundamentally reshape the calculus of postgraduate career decisions. Despite rich global literature on specialty choice, no published study had previously characterized the barriers and facilitating factors shaping postgraduate career decisions among ophthalmology residents and ophthalmologist …