What does holistic review of urology resident applicants entail?

In this video, Alexandra Tabakin, MD, discusses factors a urology program might consider when weighing applicants. She is first author of the Urology paper “Increasing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Urology Residency Recruitment: Recommendations from the Society of Women in Urology.” Tabakin is a fellow in female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, Great Neck, New York.

Transcription:

The abstract highlights the importance of a holistic application review. Can you provide some specific examples of factors a program might consider beyond traditional metrics?

Holistic review is a way to assess an applicant's candidacy for residency by looking at lived experiences and personal attributes in addition to traditional metrics, like Step 1 scores, AOA, and number of research publications. The first thing that a program can do is to define their mission and value. What's important to them and what attributes are they seeking in applicants to help them achieve that mission and those values? In our paper, we recommend creating a scoring rubric that not only considers traditional academic metrics, but also takes into account lived experiences and things that have shaped applicants into who they are. For example, when considering lived experiences, have applicants faced adversity, have they demonstrated resilience? These experiences may not have been traditionally considered because there's no place for them on a CV, but they may be formative into making the applicants who they are.

This transcription was edited for clarity.