For a study, researchers sought to assess the state of andrology fellowships currently available, the characteristics of former fellows, and the post-fellowship career pathways of fellowship graduates.
They looked for funded fellowships on the websites of the American Urological Association (AUA), the Society for the Study of Male Reproduction (SSMR), and the Sexual Medicine Society of North America (SMSNA). In addition, step-by-step inquiries for details about each program were made to Google, university websites, and program organizers. Finally, to compare results by gender, descriptive statistics and t-tests were employed.
While only 45% of programs overall participated in the 2021 AUA match, the SMSNA and SSMR endorsed 73% and 48% of the programs, respectively. Almost all programs (93%) were connected to a university. There were only 20% of female andrology faculty in programs. There were 324 andrology fellows recognized between 1982 and 2020, with 16.4% of them being female. Of the identified fellows, 54.5% of women and 45.5% of men followed academic careers, respectively (P=.39). About 65.4 and 61.4%, respectively, of men and women, were equally likely to advertise an exclusive andrology practice (P=.78). Comparing fellows who started their training before 2010 to those who started their training in or after that year, there was a rise in the percentage of female fellows from 8.1% to 20.7% (P=.0038).
The interpretation of gender-based variations in practice environments was limited because national organizations have taken measures to standardize andrology fellowship training. However, most of the fellowship material is not easily accessible. However, despite being in a field where men predominate, they discovered that there was no adverse effect on female andrologists’ capacity to practice andrology or pursue academic careers.
Reference: goldjournal.net/article/S0090-4295(22)00356-9/fulltext
