C. K. Cantrell1, S. L. Bergstresser1, B. L. Young2, S. H. Gray3, J. A. White3 1University Of Alabama at Birmingham,School Of Medicine,Birmingham, AL, USA 2Carolinas Medical Center,Department Of Orthopaedic Surgery,Charlotte, NC, USA 3University Of Alabama at Birmingham,Department Of Surgery,Birmingham, AL, USA
Introduction:
Abdominal organ transplant volume in the United States is at an all-time high. However, the ideal number of transplant programs and fellowship positions is debatable. When deciding if and where to apply to abdominal transplant fellowship training programs, prospective applicants commonly utilize individual programs’ web sites to help make these determinations, in addition to numerous other factors. Consequently, accessibility and content of these web sites from one program to the next is highly variable and may contribute to difficulties in the selection of programs and navigation of the match process. The aim of this study is to evaluate the accessibility and content of abdominal transplant surgery fellowship web sites.
Methods:
The American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) web site provides a complete list of accredited abdominal transplant fellowship programs in the United States. A Google search was performed in a systematic fashion to determine the presence and accessibility of a program’s web site. Available web sites were evaluated on the presence of 20 content criteria, previously published in similar studies from other subspecialties.
Results:
Sixty-five programs in the United States were identified using the ASTS directory. Web sites for fifty-one (78%) fellowship programs were identified, while fourteen (22%) programs did not contain an accessible web site. Three-fourths of web sites contained 50% or less of the 20 evaluated data points, while 24% of web sites contained 5 or less criteria. The most and least included data points were program description (100%) and on-call expectations (10%), respectively. Abbreviated results are listed in Table I.
Conclusion:
The accessibility and content of a program’s web site is one major factor that can influence a potential applicant’s decision on where to pursue transplant surgery fellowship training. This study revealed that a significant percentage of programs fail to provide a functional web site. Of the fifty-one programs that did have web sites, information deemed important to prospective applicants was inadequate. Establishing web sites and improving existing web sites could influence an applicant’s decision on whether to apply to a particular program. This information could potentially enhance ideal program-fellow matches and improve the overall match rate.
