A significant proportion of Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited hematology-oncology fellowship programs do not mention “classical hematology” on their websites, according to study findings published in Blood Advances. Study investigator Rakhi P. Naik, MD, of Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, commented this finding suggests many programs inadvertently omit mentions of classical (non-malignant) hematology training from their websites, which may negatively affect recruitment into the field.
“Trainees rely on websites in their decision to pursue a particular specialty,” Dr. Naik explained. “Furthermore, since 2020, all fellowship recruitment is performed virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which means that trainees are inevitably relying on website content more than ever.”
Dr. Naik added that both the ACGME and the American Board of Internal Medicine require that combined hematology-oncology fellowship programs dedicate a third of their curriculum to classical hematology. To determine whether the programs’ websites emphasize classical hematology to this extent, Dr. Naik and colleagues systematically appraised all adult ACGME-certified hematology-oncology program websites on the quantity of representation of classical hematology.
The study included 172 programs and their websites, with data collection conducted between September 2021 and January 2022. The programs were identified through an application hub for residents who pursue subspecialty training.
Researchers evaluated the websites to see whether they mentioned “classical hematology” or a similar term (e.g., “non-malignant hematology,” “general hematology,” “noncancerous hematology,” “benign hematology”).
More than half of the website links (52%) identified through the electronic residency application service were nonfunctional, and the correct links were subsequently identified for all programs via a publicly available search engine. The researchers wrote that this finding suggests that for many hematology-oncology fellowships, “program websites are often not a priority in recruitment strategies.”
Just 33% of all identified ACGME-accredited hematology-oncology fellowship websites contained the term “classical hematology” or a similar term. Additionally, only 9% of the program websites mentioned the option of single board certification in hematology.
Roughly half of the fellowship websites (54%) contained information on a limited field of classical hematology (e.g., sickle cell disease, hemophilia), but the researchers found this often did not include a general reference to classical hematology training.
In addition, the researchers found 16% of fellowship program directors (PDs) listed classical hematology as one of their specialty interests. Only 5% of these PDs listed classical hematology as their only specialty interest, while 7% listed classical and malignant hematology.
In addition, only 2% of identified PDs listed classical hematology and solid tumor as their specialty interests, while 1.7% listed classical and malignant hematology as well as solid tumor. “Therefore,” Dr. Naik said, “we additionally suggest that programs include classical hematology faculty on their websites, especially if the PD does not list this interest.”
The researchers suggested that given the data collection for the study was completed through January 2022, it is reasonable to suppose that some program websites may have updated their content since this time, while some website content may not have been updated “in several years” and could still show out-of-date information.
Regarding future directions, Dr. Naik suggested if fellowship programs advertise the availability of classical hematology training, it may “help validate classical hematology as a specialty and encourage more applicants who are exclusively interested in [it]” to apply to hematology-oncology programs.
“Imagine if a resident is interested in pursuing classical hematology as a career, but when they research hematology-oncology fellowship websites, they find that very few programs even mention the term,” she added. “That resident may be immediately dissuaded from pursuing or applying to the field altogether.”
Dr. Naik said that improving website content is only a single, small step to increasing recruitment into these programs. “The more important next step is that fellowship programs need to enhance their classical hematology training curriculum to entice fellows to pursue the field,” she said.
Any conflicts of interest declared by the authors can be found in the original article.
Reference
Panwar P, Jones JM, Christian J, Yui JC, Naik RP. Under-representation of classical hematology training on hematology-oncology fellowship program websites in the United States [published online, 2022 Sep 14]. Blood Adv. doi:10.1182/bloodadvances.2022008162.