2019 HSC Section 2 - Practice Management

Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery 154(6)

Figure 1. Descriptive results of the study population. For all 4 graphs, the y-axis is shown as a percentage and the x-axis as the categorical answer choices from the survey for each variable. Under intended practice setting, the ‘‘combined’’ category is the combined total of all the write-in ‘‘other’’ responses. PGY, postgraduate year.

Figure 2. Respondents’ interest in fellowship training for each survey year. Response options: interested in fellowship training ‘‘yes’’ vs ‘‘no’’ or already matched into a fellowship. Note: current fellows excluded from these results.

community due to increasing subspecialization. 4,5 The results of these studies in general surgery are the opposite of what is going on in otolaryngology, with our results showing a decrease in fellowship interest as physicians progress through residency. There are limitations to the study presented here. The SRF Annual Survey collects a large amount of data on mul- tiple topics; it is not designed with a primary intention of determining the factors affecting fellowship decisions. We have used all pertinent data available, but there are other likely influencing factors for which we are unable to study.

These data pertain only to otolaryngology and should there- fore not be generalized to other specialties, although multiple other specialties face similar trends. The greatest limitations of this study are the low response rate and the inability to track individual respondents over time, limiting our ability to avoid counting the same resident more than once. The low response rate does increase the possibility of a selection bias. Because data are collected anonymously, this precludes us from being able to analyze responses at any level more rigor- ous than a cross-sectional design. Although there is likely a subset of residents who complete the survey each year, the

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