Medical School Factors Associated With Students Entering Otolaryngology

To determine medical school characteristics that are associated with medical students entering otolaryngology residency programs.

Cross-sectional study.

Publically available data on otolaryngology residents and academic otolaryngology programs.

Publicly available websites were used to collect demographic and bibliometric characteristics for 1527 residents in Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited otolaryngology programs accounting for the 2017 to 2021 match periods. For each medical school, information on class size, number of otolaryngology faculty, presence of a home academic otolaryngology program, NIH research funding, presence of a student interest group, and top 10 ranking by Doximity or U.S. News and World Report (USNWR) were collected. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed between the medical school factors and the percentage of each medical school class that matriculated into an otolaryngology residency program.

On multivariate analysis, the following factors were found to be associated with a higher percentage of graduates entering an otolaryngology residency program: presence of a home academic otolaryngology program (standardized beta value (β) = 0.397, p < 0.0001), a 2021 top 10 ENT ranking according to USNWR (β = 0.206, p = 0.0028), and the average h-index of students from a medical school (β = 0.327, p < 0.0001).

After controlling for multiple factors including research productivity, we found that the presence of a home academic program and a top 10 ranking on USNWR were associated with an increasing percentage of medical school graduates entering otolaryngology. NIH funding and the number of otolaryngology faculty were not associated with more students matriculating into an otolaryngology residency program. These findings can help guide medical schools and otolaryngology programs to recruit students into the field.