Evidence-based medicine training in residency: a survey of urology programme directors.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate whether and in what format urology residents receive formal training in evidence-based clinical practice.


METHODS
In 2007 we conducted a survey of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited urology residency programmes in the USA. The survey instrument was sent to all programmes, using postal mailing, e-mail and a web-based interface. Programme director and coordinator names and basic demographic information such as programme size and length were retrieved from the institutions' websites and the ACGME database.


RESULTS
Of 117 ACGME-accredited urology programmes, 108 responded (92.3%). Most respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with statements that formal evidence-based medicine (EBM) training was valuable to urology residents (97, 89.8%) and should be part of all residency programme curricula (91, 84.3%). Eighty-four programmes (77.8%) indicated that their curricula included formal educational activities related to EBM. These programmes provided a median (interquartile range) of 10 (4.8-25.0) h of EBM teaching per academic year. Most programmes (65.9%) provided fewer hours of EBM training than programme directors perceived as ideal. Asked what would make it easier to integrate EBM into the programme, respondents identified urology-specific educational materials (33.3%), a formal curriculum (24.4%) and faculty development (16.3%) as central needs.


CONCLUSIONS
In this survey we found that most programme directors recognize formal EBM teaching as an important aspect of urology residency training. However, most programmes devote less time to EBM training than they would like, and urology-specific resources have been lacking. These findings support increased efforts to provide urology residents with opportunities to learn EBM-related knowledge and skills in a variety of educational formats.
Dahm
Philipp
P
Department of Urology, University of Florida, College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL 32610-0247, USA. p.dahm@urology.ufl.edu
Preminger
Glenn M
GM
Scales
Charles D
CD
Fesperman
Susan F
SF
Yeung
Lawrence L
LL
Cohen
Marc S
MS
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards; D003479:Curriculum; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine / Q000193:education*; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency / Q000458:organization & administration*; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods; D014481:United States; D014572:Urology / Q000193:education*