PD30-02: Assessing the Perceived Importance of Selection Criteria for Urology Residency by Under-Represented in Medicine Applicants

Efe Chantal Ghanney Simons*, Parris A. Diaz, Los Angeles, CA, Rebecca Takele, Blacksburg, VA, Serena Does, Utrecht, Netherlands, Nicholas J. Jackson, Los Angeles, CA, Samuel L. Washington III, San Francisco, CA, Benjamin N. Breyer, San Francisco , CA, Tracy M. Downs, Charlottesville, VA, Christopher Saigal, Los Angeles , CA

Introduction: Applicants’ awareness of factors influencing a urology program director’s (PD) decision to select an applicant has not been elucidated. We aimed to assess the extent of concordance between the perceived importance of factors by urology PDs versus by applicants and to examine differences in Under-Represented in Medicine (URM) urology applicant and their non-URM peers' perception of importance of various factors.

Methods: A survey was disseminated to all urology residency applicants in the 2020-2021 cycle. A separate survey was sent to PDs and Associate PDs of accredited US urology residency programs. Both surveys were disseminated via the Society of Academic Urologist list-serve. Both PDs and applicants were asked to rate 20 factors using a Likert scale from 1 (not at all important) to 5 (extremely important). Participants were considered URM if they identified as Black, Latinx, American Indian/Native Alaskan, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander. Variables were compared across race/ethnicity. ANOVA and Welch’s t-test were used to compare differences in PD, URM and non-URM urology applicant response.

Results: Of 166 PDs, 97 (68%) responded and 362 (69%) of the 523 urology applicants responded. 103 (28%) of the 362 applicants were URM. There was a statistically significant discordance between the PDs’ ratings of level of importance and that of urology applicants for 10 of 20 factors, notably, evidence of professionalism/ethics (Applicant mean 3.77, SD 1.10, vs. PD mean 4.10, SD 0.87, P=.01), USMLE Step 1 scores (Applicant mean 3.86, SD 1.10, vs. PD mean 3.20, SD 1.09, P<.001), and research publications (Applicant mean 4.03, SD 0.96, vs. PD mean 3.52, SD 0.79 P<.001). Unlike their non-URM peers, URM applicants report importance scores different from the importance scores of PDs for urology sub-internship performance at the PD’s urology training program and Step 2 CK score. Unlike their URM peers, non-URM applicants rate LOR by urologists higher than PDs but rate evidence of professionalism lower than PDs.

Conclusions: Applicants and PDs have different perceptions of what factors are important in the urology match. This discordance also exists for URM applicants and may contribute to the low representation of URM in urology.

Source of Funding: Office of the Vice Dean for Education and the Executive Director of the DGSOM AntiRacism Roadmap