National Database of Physician Training Programs Adds Alumni Reviews
San Francisco, Calif., August 25, 2015 -- Doximity, the leading medical network for 60 percent of all U.S. physicians, today launched its second annual Residency Navigator, an interactive tool designed to help the next generation of doctors research and compare residency training programs nationwide. Last year, nearly 75 percent of all senior medical students used Doximity to research the programs where they would train as new physicians. The new Residency Navigator brings an unprecedented level of transparency to graduate medical education, unveiling alumni-generated reviews and ratings of each training program.
Choosing a residency program is one of the biggest decisions new physicians face in their careers. In an effort to help medical students discover programs best-suited to their personal interests and career goals, over 38,000 U.S. physicians contributed insights. The Residency Navigator tool combines their feedback with objective data on residency programs across 22 specialties, and “alumni outcomes” analysis of the curriculum vitae (CVs) and career paths of over 700,000 U.S. physicians.
"When medical students ask for advice regarding applying to residency, I often deter them from the idea that there is a single ‘best’ program,” said Dr. Jamey Snell, Instructor in Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School. “Some excellent clinical training environments are not associated with Ivy League institutions. Factors such as the type of patients (private vs. public), city environment (urban vs. suburban), and geographic location should be taken into account. The Doximity Residency Navigator does an excellent job of displaying programs according to these factors and is now a frequent resource when counseling students on their rank list."
As medical students prepare to submit applications for residency programs where they will spend 80 hours a week for at least three years, they can use Doximity to discover:
- Detailed program statistics: Physicians in training can visualize and compare alumni subspecialization rates, time spent at affiliated hospitals, gender balance, and now have the ability to connect with volunteer alumni “mentors” for one-on-one career guidance.
- Satisfaction reviews: New this year, current residents and recent alumni have shared over 94,000 anonymized ratings and hand-written reviews on important aspects of their experience such as career guidance, schedule flexibility for pregnancy and other life events, program culture and clinical diversity.
- Personalized discovery: Students customize their lists based on their personal interests and career goals.
- Practice setting: Interactive maps highlight where alumni settle, and applicants can discover and filter programs by region, urban vs. rural environments, or training at large public hospitals.
- Clinical reputation: Over 95,000 peer nominations provide insight into which programs board-certified U.S. physicians hold in the highest regard for quality of clinical training.
- Research: Doximity’s comprehensive database of physician CVs can highlight which programs actually turn out graduates that go on to publish most extensively, bypassing commonly used proxies for quality of research training such as faculty grant funding.
- Board Pass Rates: For specialties such as internal medicine, board pass rates highlight which programs teach to national exam standards. For specialties whose medical boards have yet to release pass rate data, Residency Navigator offers the percentage of board-certified alumni as a surrogate.
U.S. medical students are invited to visit residency.doximity.com to access the free Residency Navigator tool on Doximity, and physicians are encouraged to contribute their own residency insights through October 2015. For trend data and a breakdown of satisfaction by trainee gender and geography, visit blog.doximity.com.