Association of Residents' Medical School Reputation and Urology Residency Program Ranking

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Urology Residency Match
• Higher Education Rankings

Background:

• The Urology Residency Match is highly competitive, assessing various applicant metrics.
• Recent changes in medical education have reduced objective applicant evaluation criteria.
• Understanding the association between medical school and residency program rankings is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To characterize the association between urology residents' medical school rankings and their matched urology residency program rankings.
• To analyze trends in this association over a seven-year period (2016-2022).

Main Methods:

• Publicly available data identified 2,306 urology residents from 2016-2022.
• Medical school and urology residency program rankings were sourced from US News and World Reports and Doximity.
• Ordinal logistic regression modeled the association between rankings.

Main Results:

• A significant positive association exists between urology program and medical school rankings (P < .001).
• Over seven years, the proportion of residents by medical school ranking within program tiers remained stable (P >0.05).
• Residents from higher-ranked medical schools consistently matched into top urology programs, while those from lower-ranked schools matched into lower-ranked programs.

Conclusions:

• Trainees from higher-ranked medical schools are more frequently represented in top-tier urology residency programs.
• Lower-ranked urology programs are overrepresented by residents from lower-ranked medical schools.
• This association remained consistent over the 2016-2022 application cycles.