North American urogynecology fellowship programs: value of program website content

INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS: Urogynecology fellowship program websites are an important source of information to potential applicants, especially given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and resulting travel restrictions. Our study evaluated the publicly available information on American and Canadian urogynecology fellowship websites and present recommendations for website content development to promote the subspecialty of urogynecology. METHODS: Data were collected from all active American and Canadian urogynecology fellowship program websites between May and June 2020 against 72 criteria developed from previously published studies. The criteria included the following sections: Recruitment, Faculty Information, Current Fellows, Research and Education, Surgical Program, Clinical Work, Benefits and Career Planning, Wellness, and Environment. RESULTS: 54 American urogynecology program websites and 11 Canadian urogynecology program websites were analyzed. The mean score of American and Canadian websites was 46.46% (n = 33.45 ± 7.20 out of 72) and 27.40% (n = 19.73 ± 3.77 out of 72), respectively. American program websites scored significantly higher on available information than Canadian websites. The highest prevalence section across American websites was Wellness (64%, n = 1.92 ± 0.85 out of 3 criteria) while the lowest prevalence section was Clinical Work (15.17%, n = 0.91 ± 1.02 out of 6 criteria). Comparatively, Canadian websites scored highest in the Faculty Information section (43.12%, 3.45 ± 2.02) and lowest in the Clinical Work section (6%, n = 0.36 ± 0.67 out of 6 criteria). CONCLUSIONS: American and Canadian websites thoroughly covered the Wellness and Faculty Information sections, respectively. Program websites should consider adding details about Benefits and Career Planning and Clinical Work. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00192-021-04808-9.