New Study Finds Male Residents Perform More Procedures Than Female Residents

According to a new study in JAMA Ophthalmology, female residents perform fewer cataract surgeries and procedures than their male counterparts. The study was a retrospective, longitudinal analysis of resident case logs from 24 US ophthalmology residency programs from July 2005 to June 2017 for 1,271 residents.

Results showed that male residents performed a mean of 176.7 cataract surgeries and female residents performed a mean of 161.7 cataract surgeries. Similarly, male residents performed a mean of 509.4 total procedures whereas female residents performed a mean of 451.3 total procedures. During the length of the study, each additional year correlated with an increase of 5.5 and 24.4 in cataract and total procedural volume, respectively. However, the increase did not change between genders regarding cataract surgeries. Total procedure volume increased for male residents over time.

Further research is needed to ensure residents have equal surgical training experience.

Reference:

Gong D, Winn BJ, Beal CJ, et al. Gender differences in case volume among ophthalmology residents [published online ahead of print July 2019]. JAMA Ophthalmol. doi:10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2019.2427.