We appreciate the insights regarding the disproportionate burden placed on certain disadvantaged applicants and the effect of the increasing application volume on residency programs, which are both perspectives that are often overlooked. Our analysis focused solely on application costs, but as the current study showed, application-related fees comprise only a small portion of the financial responsibility. In a study from 2014, up to 95% of urology applicants completed at least 1 away rotation and attended an average of 14 interviews with an added cost in excess of $8,000 in current dollar value estimates. These fees are not allocated to programs, making additional application fees beneficial to neither applicants’ financial wellness nor programs’ ability to cover the added time required to thoroughly review the increasing volume of applications. While virtual interviews and open houses have their own inherent drawbacks, they can aid in minimizing travel costs, serving as an added equalizer to curb the financial limitations for some applicants and programs alike. In combination with continued progress toward a more equitable, holistic review of residency applicants (preference signaling, secondary applications, etc), it will be interesting to observe how virtual residency recruitment activities continue to evolve as the pandemic catalyst, which gave rise to their widespread implementation, dissipates.
Zoe Guckien、Nikhi P. Singh、Carter J. Boyd、Soroush Rais-Bahrami
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Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana.
NSTL
