Introduction:

Technological and educational advances in medical sciences during the last fifty years have been greater than in the entire history of humanity.

Objective:

To characterize the training of general surgery specialists worldwide considering its historical and current evolution.

Methods:

A bibliographic review was carried out in the databases CUMED, SciELO, LILACS, Web of Science and PubMed, using the search engine Google Scholar. Twenty-three articles were selected: 19 (82.6%) from the five-year period 2016-2020, published in Spanish and English, concerning the set objective, for which the theoretical method of historical-logical scientific research was applied.

Development:

From the 19th century on, the evolution of surgery worldwide goes from its limitations caused by pain, infections, bleeding and shock to the dizzying development, during the twentieth century and nowadays, of anesthesiology and resuscitation, asepsis and antisepsis, novel methods for diagnosis and treatment, organ and tissue transplant surgery, minimal access surgery, simulation and robotics.

Conclusions:

Educational advances in professional training during the period of specialization in general surgery do not go in step with technological development on a global scale, hence the need to maximize the postgraduate teaching and learning process through the development of these educational advances, in order for them not to be left behind technological progress.

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