Goodman LR, et al. - The interest, surgical volume and deficits in reproductive surgery training as per the recently graduated and current reproductive endocrinology and infertility (REI) fellows in the United States are quantified in this study. In any case, there are perceived deficits in surgical experience in current fellowship training that may require fellows to look for additional surgical opportunities.

Methods

• For this research, they designed an initial and follow-up survey.
• A survey was sent to all current REI fellows (as of September 2016) and those that graduated in June 2016 (total n = 158).
• Attitudes regarding reproductive surgery and also quantitative evaluation of current training and desired surgical training was evaluated and examined with student t-test.

Results

• The survey response rate was 39.2% (62/158) and equally distributed between first (n=17), second (n= 18), third year fellows (n = 18), and first year attendings (n = 9).
• Of respondents, 45% (28/62) desired additional surgical training amid fellowship, 53% (33/62) felt that it was sufficient and one fellow desired less surgical training.
• Participants were asked to measure the number of a specific procedure performed and how many they felt they would need to feel adequately prepared to perform that procedure independently outside of fellowship (Table 1).
• Training in abdominal and hysteroscopic cases was felt to be adequate, but significant deficits in surgical volume of laparoscopic and robotic cases were noted (Table 1).
• The majority of fellows desired additional laparoscopic (55%) and robotic (52%) surgical experience with only 23% reporting no desire for any additional surgery.
• When asked about interest in method of additional training, 71% (44/62) endorsed interest in a surgical ‘away-rotation’ and 32% (20/62) reported an interest in an additional one-year surgical training program.