The progress of graduates of the Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery Graduate Program was monitored during the current four-year period, 2017-2020, through the following channels: the University of São Paulo Alumni System; email; LinkedIn; Lattes CV; Google survey; and telephone contact. Information was obtained from 109 of the 110 graduates from 2006-2020 (99%).
Analysis of the data demonstrated that a large proportion of the Program’s graduates are effectively located in national Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), whether public (27.2%) or private (17.2%), located in various states of the country, and in foreign institutions (3.6%), with particular emphasis on those with a degree in Medicine in the Program’s area of concentration. The positive placement of graduates with non-medical training in National Research Institutes (IPq) (8.1%) and in the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Industry (4.5%), confirms the Program’s effective role in doctoral training. It should be noted, however, that more than a third of the Program’s graduates are working solely in healthcare activities in the public (12.7%) or private (25.4%) sectors.
The following data show the status of graduates according to their period of graduation:
Graduates from 2006 to 2010: Public HEI – 12 (29.1%); Private HEI – 8 (20%); National IPq – 1 (11.6%); IPq/foreign HEI – 1 (2.4%); Industry – 1 (2.4%); Public sector – 5 (12.1%); Private sector – 12 (29.1%). Graduates from 2011 to 2015: Public HEI – 12 (36.3%); Private HEI – 7 (21.2%); National IPq – 2 (6.1%); IPq/foreign HEI – 1 (3%); Public sector – 3 (9.3%); Private sector – 8 (24.2%).
Graduates from 2015 to 2020: Public HEI – 6 (16.6%); Private HEI – 4 (11.1%); National IPq – 6 (16.6%); IPq/foreign HEI – 2 (5.5%); Industry – 4 (11.1%); Public sector – 6 (16.6%); Private sector – 8 (22.2%). As additional information, the mentoring of Master’s or Doctoral graduate students was recorded by five graduates from 2006 to 2010, two from 2011 to 2015, and one from 2016 to 2020, corresponding to 7.2% of the graduates analyzed.
Alumni with outstanding performance since their degree were considered, as were two currently affiliated with foreign teaching and research institutions (José Pedro da Silva – University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, United States; Rafael Simas – Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden). Two other graduates currently affiliated with foreign institutions were international students who completed their degrees in the Program during the current four-year period (Gade Satuala Vasco Miguel – Agostinho Neto University, Luanda, Angola; Maxim Goncharov – Russian Cardiology Research and Production Center, Moscow, Russia). Also noteworthy are four graduates of the Program during the period analyzed who were incorporated into the Program as permanent faculty members (Rogério Pazetti, Ricardo Mingarini Terra, Marcos Naoyuki Samano, and Omar Asdrubal Vilca Mejia). Another highlight is graduate Gabriel Romero Liguori, founder of the startup TissueLabs – a biotechnology company that was featured at the “Brazil Conference at Harvard & MIT 2019” and received the “Innovators Under 35” award from MIT Technology Review, a magazine of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States.
