Introduction:

We aimed to compare the performance at the Examen Nacional de Aspirantes a Residencias Médicas (ENARM) of the five direct-entry surgical specialties, and between Mexicans and International medical graduates (IMG).

Methods:

This study was cross-sectional, used historical data from the annual public report of the ENARM during 8 years (2012-2019). We compare the minimum (MinSco) and maximum (MaxSco) scores of each specialty using ANOVA. Mexican versus IMG scores were evaluated with independent student t-test, trends with Spearman's correlation coefficient and a 5-years forecasting trend.

Results:

There was a significant difference among the MinSco for five surgical specialties; F (4, 78) = 24.586, p ≤ 0.001; the global mean of MinSco was 72.572; specialties above this mean were ophthalmology, otorhinolaryngology, and general surgery. The global mean for MaxSco was 81.559, two specialties were above: ophthalmology, and general surgery. We did not find a significant difference in the MinSco between Mexicans and IMG, but significance was found in the MaxSco between both groups.

Conclusions:

ENARM represents a market of high-performance test-takers across the surgical specialties. Mexicans and IMG achieved similar entrance scores, but Mexicans showed a higher MaxSco over IMG in all surgical specialties.

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