Retina fellowship program websites may lack consistent, updated information
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
NEW YORK — Retina fellowship programs usually have accessible websites, but information available on these sites may be inconsistent and incomplete, according to a study.
“Inconsistent, outdated information on program websites may lead to increased number of applications and deter applicants,” Brian T. Cheng, MD, and colleagues wrote in a poster presented at the American Society of Retina Specialists annual meeting.
Cheng and colleagues compiled a list of 127 retina fellowship programs, 102 surgical and 25 medical, to investigate the recruitment and training content available on each retina program’s website based on 10 recruitment and 10 program training characteristics.
Differences based on program size, geographic location, Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology (AUPO) compliance status and the overall accessibility of each website were evaluated.
According to the poster, 91.2% of surgical retina fellowship programs and 88% of medical retina fellowship programs had an accessible website, with surgical retina fellowship websites containing an average of 9.8 total characteristics (4.9 recruitment and 5.2 training criteria) and medical retina fellowship websites containing an average of 9.3 total characteristics (4.5 recruitment and 4.9 training criteria).
There were significant differences in medical retina fellowship website content based on geographic location (P = .03) and AUPO compliance (P = .01). There were no differences in website content for medical retina based on program size or for surgical retina based on number of fellows, geographic location or AUPO compliance.
Retina fellowship websites often had room to improve in the amount of information given to potential applicants, such as more information about current and prior fellows, alumni placement and training approaches.
“There are opportunities for improvement across surgical and medical programs,” Cheng and colleagues wrote. “Informative, up-to-date websites may help programs attract candidates well suited to the program and improve a fellowship program’s match success.”
Collapse
Cheng BT, et al. Assessing the content of surgical and medical retina fellowship program websites. Presented at: American Society of Retina Specialists annual meeting; July 13-16, 2022; New York.
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts