Familiarity Trends of Successful Urology Residency Match Applicants

Introduction: We sought to determine if training program "familiarity" played a role in the successful match of urological surgery residents. Methods: We analyzed information from successful urology match participants in the United States between 2015 and 2020. Data were collected from the Association of American Medical Colleges applications, UrologyMatch.com and SurveyMonkey (R). Information recorded included each candidate's name, hometown, undergraduate institution, graduate or research program (if applicable), medical school, location of visiting subinternships in urological surgery and urology residency training program. Results: Overall, 1,080 of 1,451 successful urology match candidates (74.4%) met 1 or more "familiarity" criteria. Specifically, 329 (22.7%) and 508 (35.0%) students successfully matched into their home and visiting urology training programs, respectively. Of the remaining applicants 153 (10.5%) and 90 (6.2%) matched into training programs <150 miles from their hometowns and within institutions of previous academic pursuits, respectively. South Central section programs were most likely to match students into their home programs (p=0.010). Visiting students were most and least likely to match at programs from Western (p=0.044) and Northeastern (p=0.001) sections, respectively. The New York section matched more candidates from hometowns within 150 miles compared to other sections of the American Urological Association (p=0.0003). Conclusions: Student and program "familiarity" may play a role in residency match success. Our study demonstrated nearly 75% of urology applicants matched into either their home institutions, visiting subinternship programs, sites of previous undergraduate/graduate studies or training programs <150 miles from their hometowns.