Presented by: Kelly Lehner MD
Mayo Clinic - Rochester

Introduction

Gender disparities exist in surgical training experience and case volumes among other surgical specialties. We aimed to characterize potential gender disparities in surgical training experience during endourology fellowships.

Materials

We analyzed surgical case logs submitted to the Endourological Society for all graduating fellows in 2020-2022. Case logs were cross-referenced with a list of verified fellowship graduates to ensure accuracy. Data from case logs for 2-year fellows were halved to allow for analysis on a cases-per-year basis.

Results

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Case logs for 131 endourology fellows were analyzed. 18 fellows were women (14%), corresponding to 3716 of 28961 (13%) total logged procedures. Average total surgical cases for women vs men were similar (228 vs 223, p=0.5) (Figure). For stone cases, women averaged significantly higher volumes for PCNL cases (89 vs 51, p=0.02). While there was a trend towards more women performing more lap/robotic (149 vs 136, p=0.73) and ureteroscopy (134 vs 114, p=0.87) cases, these differences were not statistically significant.

Conclusion

Women perform similar surgical case volumes overall during Endourological Society fellowships compared to men. These findings suggest that, in contrast to gender disparities in surgical training experience in other specialties, women and men achieve similar surgical opportunities in endourology fellowship, which strengthens the preparedness of the contemporary endourology workforce.

Funding

None

Co-Authors

Kelly Lehner, MD
Mayo Clinic - Rochester

Maraika Robinson, MD
Mayo Clinic - Rochester

Aaron Potretzke, MD
Mayo Clinic - Rochester

Li-Ming Su, MD
University of Florida

Kevin Koo, MD, MPH
Mayo Clinic - Rochester