Practice Expectations Compared to Reality for Women in Urology: A National Survey

We determined the patient gender distribution for practicing male and female urologists in the U.S. compared to current resident expectations.

Two mirrored surveys were distributed to AUA members practicing in the U.S. Questions were asked regarding years in training and practice, subspecialty, gender representation of patients and job satisfaction. Answer choices were based on a 5-point balanced Likert scale.

Overall there were 894 respondents, including 704 practicing urologists and 190 urology residents, of whom women accounted for 14%. This figure reflects current AUA demographic data. Only 15.2% of female residents expected that once in practice more than 60% of their patients would be women compared to 45.5% of practicing female physicians who indicated that more than 60% of their patients are women. When stratified by fellowship training the 38.5% of female physicians who were trained in a specialty other than female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery and pediatrics still most commonly saw more than 60% female patients compared to 0.8% of male physicians. Overall satisfaction with the gender balance of patients was 76.0% for female physicians and 70.9% for male physicians.

Female urologists report seeing greater numbers of female patients than their male counterparts and specialty training only modestly alters this gap. Current female residents may underestimate the number of women they will eventually see in practice based on current trends in our survey. However, overall satisfaction with the gender balance of patients seen is high.