Abstract
Purpose :
Resident experiences can significantly vary across institutions and be impacted by a variety of factors. We assess residents’ experiences regarding access to mentorship, bias, and wellbeing in order to identify areas of improvement and intervention.
Methods :
A cross-sectional study of US residents was done using an anonymous online survey consisting of 59 multiple choice questions. Surveys were distributed to graduate medical education offices of residency programs accredited by the ACGME in December of 2022. Respondents were queried regarding demographic information, access to mentorship, experiences of bias, overall wellbeing, and impact of COVID-19 pandemic on medical training.
Results :
105 graduate medical education offices were contacted, with confirmed distribution to a total of 5,000 residents across programs and specialties. Over 30 days, 100 (2%) responses were collected. Respondents were predominantly women (64%), US citizens (87%), and residents of programs in the southern and northeastern US (66% and 29%, respectively). Most respondents indicated they had adequate access to a research mentor (59%). Many residents felt that race (38%) and gender (45%) had an impact on receiving research opportunities and training from faculty. A considerable proportion of respondents also reported having witnessed some form of bias from faculty they worked with, and 39% reported personally experiencing some form of bias from faculty. Of respondents who identified as women, 96.9% reported that someone assumed they were a nurse in the last year. Of all respondents, 22% indicated that someone had assumed they were not a doctor due to their race. On questions probing resident wellbeing and burnout (ranked on a scale of 1-10), most residents ranked their wellbeing highly (62.5% ranked > 7/10 vs 16% ranked < 4/10), but also reported high levels of burnout (45% ranked > 7/10). Most respondents trained during the COVID-19 pandemic (93%), and a considerable proportion of residents felt that the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on their clinical training (53%).
Conclusions :
Bias by faculty in US residency programs still remains in 2022 with perceived differences in access to research opportunities and training based on resident race and gender. Resident rankings of wellbeing were modest coupled with relatively high levels of burnout. Most residents felt that the COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected their training.
This abstract was presented at the 2023 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in New Orleans, LA, April 23-27, 2023.