Introduction

Women comprise over 7% of the current urologic workforce and 23% of current urology trainees. Despite this, women urologists may encounter gender-based practice patterns that can potentially limit their scope of practice. Vasectomy is one of the most common procedures performed by urologists, with many authors estimating over 500,000 such cases performed in the United States each year. Given the changing demography of the urology workforce, we sought to elucidate the changing practice patterns of women urologists performing vasectomies over time.

Methods

Annualized case log data for vasectomy was obtained from the American Board of Urology (ABU) for all urologists certifying or recertifying from 2002 to 2013. We evaluated trends in vasectomy in regards to the gender of the performing surgeon and geographic location subdivided by AUA section. Linear regression was used to evaluate the percentage of vasectomies performed by women over time and establish both regional and national trends.

Results

From the 7,819 case logs submitted by urologists in the United States we analyzed 123,443 vasectomies. The percentage of vasectomies performed by women urologists nationally increased by approximately 0.33 percentage points per year from 0.92% in 2002 to 4.4% in 2013 (R2=0.75). Regional sub-analysis revealed that this trend was preserved across the country with faster rates of increase noted in the Western and New England AUA sections.

Conclusions

Women now account for 50% of medical school graduates and an increasing percentage of urologists. Our analysis indicates that this movement towards gender parity is reflected in the relative rise of vasectomies performed by women urologists with faster rates of rise in the Western and New England AUA sections. However, it is worth noting that women still perform disproportionately fewer vasectomies than would be predicted by current workforce composition. Further studies are warranted to determine the effects of gender on urologists' practice patterns and patients' selection of their surgeons.

Funding

none