Content Evaluation of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Residency Websites

Abstract

Background: Prospective Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) applicants commonly view residency program websites to make informed decisions about where to submit their applications. To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive review of the availability and accessibility of online content for PM&R residency programs. Objective: To evaluate the comprehensiveness of PM&R residency websites to inform prospective applicants about the information readily available to them and identify deficient areas for program directors to address. Design: Cross-sectional analysis of residency program websites using quantitative and descriptive statistics. Setting: World Wide Web (Internet). Subjects: 87 PM&R civilian residency program websites listed on the Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database (FREIDA). Main Outcome Measurements: The presence or absence of 25 predetermined criteria on residency program websites. Results: The individual residency program websites had a mean AE SD of 12.3 AE 4.3 (49.1%) of the 25 criteria sought. The programs ranged from having as few as one to as many as 19 of the 25 criteria. Twenty programs had 9 or fewer criteria, 35 programs had 10 to 14 criteria, 31 programs had 15 to 18 criteria, and one program had 19 criteria available online. No PM&R residency website had all 25 criteria. There was a significant association between a program's Doximity ranking as top 20 or not and the citation of published research projects by faculty on a PM&R website (P = .026), but the other 24 criteria had no significant associations. Conclusions: Most PM&R residency websites currently do not include comprehensive information about their programs for prospective applicants.

Evaluation of Adult Neurology Residency Program Websites

“…Our observation of wide variability in neurology program website content and accessibility is similar to other studies evaluating residency program websites in other medical specialties 2,5–12 . These findings suggest many programs could easily enhance their program websites and increase accessibility to potentially attract more applicants.…”

“…independently assessed the websites between February and April 2020 using 24 prespecified criteria. The criteria were chosen based on reports of educational, recruitment, and compensation information desired by medical students 1–4 and those utilized in similar studies in other specialties 1,2,5–12 . Discrepancies in data collection were resolved by consensus agreement between the 2 authors evaluating the websites (C.V. and D.D.).…”

“…Multiple studies in various specialties have shown that there is a wide variation in the comprehensiveness of residency websites 1,2,5–12 . Currently, there are no published studies that have systematically evaluated neurology residency websites for their content.…”

Improving the online presence of residency programs to ameliorate COVID-19’s impact on residency applications

“…There have been nationwide assessments on the content of residency program websites within fourteen specialties available to graduating medical students (Figure 1). [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] Although methodology and variable selection was not uniform, these studies all attempted to quantify the availability of online information for applicants on residency program websites by using predetermined sets of content variables found to be of interest to potential applicants (Supplementary Table 1 and identified 22 variables that were rated as "important" by students. 25 However, 17 of these variables, such as career placement and board pass rates, were significantly underrepresented on actual program websites.…”

The Content and Accessibility of Orthopaedic Residency Program Websites

“…Although studies of the content and accessibility of nonorthopaedic residency websites have been performed 4 - 7 , to the authors’ knowledge, no study has specifically evaluated the content and accessibility of orthopaedic surgery residency websites since 2001 8 . Orthopaedic surgery fellowship websites, however, have been analyzed 9 - 23 , and this study uses a similar protocol 9 , 10 , 14 , 23 to assess orthopaedic residency website content and accessibility.…”