Assessing the Quality of Recruitment Information on Skull Base Surgical Fellowship Program Websites

Abstract

Introduction: The objective of the present study is to assess website accessibility and information availability for individual fellowship programs listed within the AANS, NASBS, ARS, and ANS fellowship directories. Methods: Lists of all accredited skull base surgical programs were obtained from the AANS and NASBS fellowship directories. Duplications in listed programs were removed, and systematic queries via an online search engine were conducted to identify fellowship websites. From each available website, information pertaining to 24 different variables was collected and organized into two categories – recruitment and education. Results: After excluding duplicates, 113 fellowship programs were identified, of which 99 (87.6%) had accessible websites. Of the 48 listed by the NASBS, direct website links were available for 33 (68.8%), email contacts were accessible for 32 (66.7%) and phone numbers were listed for 6 (12.5%). Of the 39 programs listed by the AANS, none included website links, 38 (97.4%) provided an email contact, and 39 (100%) listed a departmental contact telephone number. Of the 99 total programs, fellowship websites displayed an average of 5.46 (42.0%) of the 13 recruitment features and 4.80 (42.6%) of the 11 education features. Programs in the geographic Northeast were significantly less likely to present information pertaining to recruitment (p=0.023). Furthermore, programs in geographic Northeast and West were significantly less likely to present information focused on surgical training and/or education (p=0.006). Conclusion: Although many skull base fellowship programs have maintained comprehensive program websites, certain critical aspects remain deficient, and some programs provide little to no information.