Objective　To investigate the understanding of microsurgery education for clinical medical students

and the education methods for microsurgery courses in 8 schools. Methods　The questionnaire was designed around four aspects: the learning status of Chinese medical students in microsurgery learning

the impact of microsurgery learning on future career choices

the current situation of opening microsurgery courses in 8 medical schools

and the opinions and suggestions on improving microsurgery learning in China. Electronic and paper questionnaires were combined to evaluate the condition of understanding microsurgery among 1 000 medical students from Peking University Health Science Center and other 7 schools. Then

the validity of the collected questionnaires was reviewed. SPSS 19.0 were applied for data analysis. Results　A total of 808 valid questionnaires were collected (recovery rate = 80.8%). Respondents' understanding of microsurgery remained at the level of just heard (2.18±2.83)

and 98.41% (795/808) of the students believed that microsurgery related disciplines would bring certain help to their future careers. Male students more recognized the impact of microsurgery learning on future career than female students [(6.19±2.36) vs. (5.76±2.09)

P < 0.05)]. In these 8 investigated universities

only Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and Zhongshan School of Medicine of Sun Yat-sen University conducted a microsurgery course

while 80.01% (531/663) of the students in the other 6 universities wanted to set microsurgery courses. Microsurgery operation observation (86.82%

701/808)

animal models for microsurgery practical training (82.95%

670/808)

and online theory courses (43.18%

349/808) were able to increase the interest in microsurgery learning for students. Conclusion　Microsurgery course can bring many benefits to medical students

and it is urgent for domestic medical colleges to carry out microsurgery related courses.