Institution and Specialty Contribute to Resident Satisfaction With Their Learning Environment and Workload

Background This large, multi-institutional study examines the relative contribution of residency specialty and institution to resident satisfaction with their learning environment and workload. Method Survey responses from 798 residents were linked to institution (N = 20) and specialty (N = 10) and to characteristics of individual residency programs (N = 126) derived from the FREIDA Online database. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to estimate relative contributions of these factors to resident satisfaction with workload and learning environment. Results Institution had greater influence than specialty on resident ratings of satisfaction with their workload and learning environment. Institution and specialty accounted for more variance in satisfaction with workload than with the learning environment. There is evidence that characteristics of a given residency program in a given institution have additional impact beyond these main effects. However, characteristics of institutions or programs, such as program selectivity, off-duty periods, or number of faculty, did not explain statistically significant amounts of variance in resident satisfaction ratings. Conclusions This study is the first to quantify the degree to which institution and specialty contribute to differences in resident perceptions of their learning environment and workload. Although organizational and institutional cultures are presumed to influence the learning environment, estimating the size of these influences requires a multi-institutional and multispecialty dataset, such as this one. These results suggest that there is empirical justification for institutional interventions to improve the learning environment.