Practice patterns of recently fellowship-trained reconstructive urologists

Objective: To analyze the practice patterns of recently fellowship-trained reconstructive urologists to help guide fellowship program curriculum development and to evaluate the impact that formal reconstructive urology training has on academic urology programs.

Methods: We evaluated the case logs of 7 recently fellowship-trained reconstructive urologists affiliated with US academic institutions from August 2009 to August 2011 (median years in practice = 2, range 1-6 years). We categorized cases into endoscopic, oncological, female, general (nononcological), and reconstructive. Our primary outcome was the volume of reconstructive procedures as a percentage of all procedures. Our secondary outcome was the correlation between years in practice and reconstructive volume and case complexity.

Results: A total of 3561 cases were analyzed, representing 12 surgeon-years. Endoscopic surgery was most common (42.7%), followed by reconstructive (36.1%), general urologic (10.5%), and oncological (3.7%). The most common type of reconstructive procedure performed was anterior urethroplasty (mean 42.8 per year) followed by bladder reconstruction (mean 17.7 per year). The percentage of yearly cases considered reconstructive was positively associated with total years in practice (r = .688, P = .013) as was the complexity of artificial urinary sphincter cases (r = .857, P = .0004), but not urethral reconstructive complexity (r = .40, P = .197).

Conclusion: The demand for services delivered by fellowship-trained reconstructive urologists is high, as evidence by the large percentage of reconstructive procedures in this cohort even early in practice. With additional years in practice comes further specialization.