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INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: Over the past decade, increasing emphasis has been placed on urologic fellowships. Ideally, fellows are intended to enhance the educational and clinical experience of residents, however, concerns have been raised that fellowships may jeopardize the quality of resident training. Our objective was to collect opinions from residents, clinical fellows and faculty regarding the impact of clinical fellowship on urology resident training.
METHODS: Past and present residents and Uro-Oncology fellows (1998-2012), as well as current faculty members from the University of British Columbia’s Department of Urological Sciences were anonymously surveyed using a questionnaire with the following categories: influence of fellows on resident training, clinical responsibility, surgical opportunities and presence of fellows. ANOVA and post-hoc testing were performed to determine differences between respondent groups.
RESULTS: Response rates were 43% for residents, 56% for fellows, and 56% for faculty. Fellows perceived a positive impact of their involvement in resident training compared to residents and faculty (p<0.05). Residents felt clinical fellows should be asked to participate in the on-call schedule, whereas only 22% of fellows agreed (p=0.019). Opinions differed on the importance of fellows to residents’ surgical training, equivalence of surgical skills learning from fellows and faculty and availability of cases for residents (all p <0.05). Faculty and fellows had higher ratings of agreement than residents to the statement ‘the division could support additional clinical fellows’ (p=0.048) and fellows disagreed with the statement ‘the division should aim to reduce the number of clinical fellows’ more than both residents and faculty (p=0.002).
CONCLUSION: Residents, clinical fellows and faculty have differing perceptions regarding the impact of fellows on resident training. Further research is warranted to understand the reasons for these findings.