Becker's Hospital Review

75 FINANCE CMO / CARE DELIVERY Why Having a Baby May Prevent Women From Pursuing Surgical Residencies By Alyssa Rege M any female surgical residents are forgoing maternity leave following pregnancy — against the advice of their own phy- sicians — to complete their residency programs within a relatively normal timeframe, reported Bloomberg. While residency training is imperative to incurring additional knowledge physicians will use later in their careers, the additional training may not be conducive for female residents hoping to start a family earlier in life, according to the report. The difficulty of having children while completing residency may be discouraging female residents from becoming surgeons altogether, according to a survey conducted by researchers at Boston-based Brigham and Women's Hospital. For the study, researchers surveyed 347 active surgeons who identified as pregnant during their residencies. Of those surveyed, slightly un- der half said they considered quitting their residency program during that time, while roughly one-third of women said they wouldn't rec- ommend female medical students become surgeons, according to Bloomberg. e relative inflexibility of most residency programs may also contrib- ute to the gender pay gap that oen forms between male and female physicians, according to the report. While students of both genders enter medical school in relatively equal numbers, female physicians oen earn less than men, in part because they enter lower-paying spe- cialties. Bloomberg reported 44 percent of U.S. medical residents were women in 2016. However, females comprised 66 percent of pediatric residents, but only 36 percent of surgical residents, the report stated. While some programs do provide maternity leave, many residents do not utilize the full time off. Because residency programs run on such strict schedules, taking extra time off to have a baby may affect a res- ident's timeline for training or potentially disqualify her from com- pleting her board exams, which are only given once a year, the report states. Compared with other specialty programs — such as UC San Francisco's pediatric residency program, which pays for six weeks of maternity leave on top of standard paid vacation and allows residents to take up to six months of unpaid leave — surgical residencies may not be the best fit for those seeking to start a family. n Residency Program Probation Lifted for Summa Health By Leo Vartorella T he Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education lifted the probation against Akron, Ohio-based Summa Health that restricted the system from re-es- tablishing its emergency medicine residen- cy program, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. The program's accreditation was rescinded July 1 after the ACGME found patients from Summa Akron City Hospital were being dis- charged from the emergency room after be- ing seen only by residents and not their su- pervising physicians. These problems began after contract disputes in December 2016 between Summa and the physician group that staffed Summa's five emergency rooms. These physicians also acted as faculty mem- bers for Summa's emergency medicine resi- dency program. Though the probation has been lifted, it will still take time for the system to re-apply and re-establish its residency program. n Study: Online Physician Ratings Not Indicative of Care Quality By Mackenzie Bean O nline physician ratings are a poor indicator of clinical perfor- mance, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. For the study, researchers analyzed online ratings, specialty-specific performance scores and peer review scores for 78 physicians repre- senting eight medical and surgical specialties. Researchers pulled on- line ratings from the five most popular ratings websites: Healthgrades, Vitals, Yelp, RateMDs and UCompareHealth. Performance scores in- cluded metrics on 30-day readmissions, length of stay and adjusted cost of care. Peer review scores included ratings from both fellow phy- sicians and administrators. Researchers found no significant association between a physician's av- erage online rating score and specialty-specific performance scores or peer review scores. The online ratings did not correlate to any score metrics addressing clinical quality or value-based care. Of physicians who ranked the lowest for performance scores, only 5 percent to 32 percent also ranked among the lowest in online ratings. "When you're trying to choose a restaurant online, it's OK if you get a bad recommendation, but the stakes are high here," study coauthor Timothy Daskivich, MD, a urologic oncologist with Cedars-Sinai Med- ical Center in Los Angeles, told Reuters. "Online rating companies should be clear about what their ratings measure and don't measure so patients understand the scores." n

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