To evaluate the association of program director (PD) gender on the proportion of female residents in urology residency programs.
Demographics for program faculty and current residents matched in the 2017-2022 cycles at United States’ accredited urology residency programs were collected from institutional websites. Data verification was completed using the AUA’s list of accredited programs and the programs’ official social media channels. Proportion of female residents across cohorts were compared using two-tailed Student’s t-tests.
143 accredited programs were studied, and six were excluded for lack of data. 30 (22%) of the 137 programs studied have female PDs. Of 1,799 residents, 571 (32%) are women. There has been an upward trend in the proportion of females matched from 26% in 2018 to 30% in 2019, 33% in 2020, 32% in 2021, to 38% in 2022. When compared to programs with male PDs, those with female PDs had a significantly higher proportion of female residents (36.2% vs 28.8%, p=0.02).
Nearly one-quarter of urology residency PDs are female, and approximately one-third of current urology residents are women, a proportion that has been increasing. Programs with female PDs are more likely to match female residents, whether those programs with female leadership rank female applicants more favorably or female applicants rank those programs higher. Given the ongoing gender disparities in urology, these findings indicate notable benefit in supporting female urologists in academic leadership positions.

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