Survey: 85% of U.S. medical residents, fellows prefer in-person vs. virtual conferences

William N. Levine, MD

Glattke and colleagues report on a survey study determining preferences for residents and fellows regarding in-person vs. virtual meeting attendance. The bottom line is: 85% of respondents prefer in-person meeting attendance. While we can debate the survey response numbers and bias, the results are very clear. The opportunity to be in person, have “human touch,” network and engage with your peers outweighs the only real benefit of virtual meetings – cost and convenience.

Virtual conferences (local, regional, national or international) are incredibly challenging. Distractions, multi-tasking, lack of accountability and the lack of live, interactive debate make virtual meetings less desirable.

As president of the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons, having to host our annual meeting virtually was a tremendous disappointment – of course, we had no choice given the timing relevant to the COVID-19 crisis.

Meeting coordinators and chairs should take note of the findings from this study. Planning a virtual-only meeting is risky given their findings, and I would agree with that. Residents and fellows benefit greatly from meeting faculty in person. The opportunity to network prior to fellowship pursuit and meet potential future partners and mentors cannot be replicated in the virtual world.

In summary, Glattke and colleagues have shown that most residents and fellows prefer in-person meetings. While not studied in this survey, I would predict identical findings if residents, fellows and medical students were queried regarding in-person vs. virtual interviews.

Andrew Bi, MD

Kaycee Glattke, PhD, Joshua Bingham, MD, FAOA, and colleagues from the Mayo Clinic Arizona should be commended for their survey on virtual vs. in-person conferences in the post-pandemic era. They highlighted the continuous struggle for those in medical training (residents and fellows) between the alluring pull of in-person conferences — dynamic didactic or hands-on educational content, networking opportunities that may kick-start longstanding friendships or productive collaborations and the enticing opportunity to travel — to the practicality and convenience of virtual conferences, saving both time and money. This survey is interesting in that it was sent to all specialties of training, with 121 (42%) of the 288 respondents being family or internal medicine and only 15 (5.2%) orthopedic and 37 (12.8%) surgical specialty respondents, which provides broad external validity to all of academic medicine but may not apply directly to orthopedics. Lastly, the results should be interpreted with common survey biases, such as sampling and nonresponse bias. The type of trainee to fill out these emailed surveys are more likely to be the ones who enjoy in-person conferences, contributing to the 85% preference for in-person conferences, and only 64% of the 448 trainees who started the survey completed at least 50% of the survey.