Experts discuss potential work with DEI content on urology residency websites

In this video, Olubusola Osunsanya, MS, and Keiko Cooley, MD, discuss potential future work based on the publication, “Assessment of the presence of diversity, equity, and inclusion content on urology residency programs websites.” Osunsanya is a medical student at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and Cooley is a urologic surgery resident at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon.

Video Transcript:

Olubusola: As of right now, we haven't moved forward with future work, but ideally we're hoping that with this information being published, program directors and institutions within urology departments are able to see this and at least update their website. That's the first thing, because that was limiting in our research is that we realized that we reviewed the websites over about 3 to 6 months span, [so] some of these sites could not have been updated. They haven't been updated in years. That's what is forefront. Then from there, maybe in a few years, it'd be nice to go back and see how things have changed to see how the demographics and how the history of things has changed over these last few years just to see what is changing in the future.

Cooley: Another limitation of our project was that we defined the primary criteria and the secondary criteria. Prior to the study, there was no engagement from applicants or with applicants to find out if those things that we listed as primary criteria were actually the things that were most important to them. So, another effort could be querying recent applicants or current applicants and seeing what information about diversity, equity, and inclusion would be important to them and information that they would like to see on a website. By and large, medical students, particularly those applying to surgical specialties, seem to be interested in the backgrounds of faculty, research opportunities, surgical volume, and even those criteria are not standardized across residency websites. So, there are a couple of opportunities for standardization across residency websites, including diversity, equity, and inclusion.

This transcription has been edited for clarity.