Evaluation of Canadian urology residency and fellowship program websites.

Abstract

There is growing use of online resources in the postgraduate medical education application process to provide applicants program-specific details, thus allowing for informed decision-making. Given the variability and non-standardized electronic training descriptions and objectives, our goal was to assess the availability of program information through program websites for both residency and fellowship urology programs across Canada. Using the Canadian Residency Matching Service (CaRMS) and the Canadian Urological Association (CUA) websites, we compiled a list of all Canadian urology residency and fellowship programs. We reviewed all programs' website using a 40-item tool based on seven subcategories, including education, application process, faculty information, trainee/fellow information, research and extra-curricular activities, wellness, and both benefits and career planning. Each website was reviewed by two trained reviewers. Any inter-reviewer discrepancy was resolved by a third-party reviewer. Among 13 Canadian urology residency programs, all had program websites and met 48% of the criteria evaluated. None of the residency program websites reported information on work hours, surgical caseload statistics, or equity diversity and inclusion/community initiatives. Among 37 Canadian urology fellowship programs, 10 programs did not have websites, and the remaining 27 program websites met 28% of the criteria evaluated. Scores were highest for the application process subcategory, while scores were lowest for the wellness and benefits/career planning subcategories among both residency and fellowship programs. With growing reliance and dependence on web resources to access residency and fellowship program information, there is a clear need to standardize and improve Canadian training websites for prospective applicants.