Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Apr;18(4):e600-e609.
doi: 10.1200/OP.21.00623. Epub 2022 Feb 3.

Analysis of Hematology and Oncology Fellowship Website Content and Diversity Representation

Arun Muthiah  1 , Vanya Aggarwal  2 , Chandrasekar Muthiah  3 , Chapman Wei  4 , Thomas Ollila  1 , Matthew I Quesenberry  1 , Don S Dizon  1
Affiliations

Analysis of Hematology and Oncology Fellowship Website Content and Diversity Representation

Arun Muthiah et al. JCO Oncol Pract. 2022 Apr.

Abstract

Purpose: Hematology and oncology (HO) lags behind all medicine subspecialties in fellows under-represented in medicine (URM) despite a growing minority patient population. Websites have been effectively used in URM recruitment. We evaluated all US HO program websites to facilitate a more informed and URM-considerate recruitment. We also performed a stratified analysis on programs affiliated with National Cancer Institute (NCI) Designated Cancer Centers, National Comprehensive Cancer Center Network (NCCN) member institutions, and ranked as a top 50 cancer hospital by US News, given their stated commitment to outreach.

Materials and methods: Websites of all 2019-2020 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited HO programs were assessed for 28 informational and three diversity categories. Websites with > 70% of categories were comprehensive. Affiliation with NCI, NCCN, and US News was noted.

Results: One hundred fifty-six websites were analyzed: 20% were comprehensive and 22% had any diversity information. Inclusion of diversity content and being comprehensive were significantly associated (P = .001). NCI, NCCN, and US News ranking were significantly associated with inclusion of more information in univariate analyses (P < .001, P = .008, and P < .001, respectively). Multivariate analyses showed that US News ranking was significantly associated with more information (P = .005). Diversity-related univariate and multivariate analyses showed a significant association with US News ranking (P = .006 and P = .029, respectively).

Conclusion: Most HO fellowship websites are not comprehensive and lack diversity content. Given COVID-19 travel restrictions limit in-person interviews, digital program presence remains an important opportunity. HO programs should offer comprehensive and inclusive websites to better inform applicants, including URM. This may increase institutional diversity and potentially improve URM representation in the HO workforce.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Don S. DizonThis author is a member of the JCO Oncology Practice Editorial Board. Journal policy recused the author from having any role in the peer review of this manuscript.Consulting or Advisory Role: i-Mab, Clovis Oncology, AstraZeneca, Regeneron, Tesaro, Pfizer, Oasmia Pharmaceutical ABResearch Funding: Bristol Myers Squibb (Inst), Kazia Therapeutics (Inst), Pfizer (Inst)Open Payments Link: https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/physician/744193/summaryNo other potential conflicts of interest were reported.

LinkOut - more resources