Transgender-Related Education in Plastic Surgery and Urology Residency Programs.

[BACKGROUND] With increasing public awareness of and greater coverage for gender-confirming surgery by insurers, more transgender patients are likely to seek surgical transition. The degree to which plastic surgery and urology trainees are prepared to treat transgender patients is unknown.

[OBJECTIVE] We assessed the number of hours dedicated to transgender-oriented education in plastic surgery and urology residencies, and the impact of program director (PD) attitudes on provision of such training.

[METHODS] PDs of all Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited plastic surgery (91) and urology (128) programs were invited to participate. Surveys were completed between November 2015 and March 2016; responses were collected and analyzed.

[RESULTS] In total, 154 PDs (70%) responded, and 145 (66%) completed the survey, reporting a yearly median of 1 didactic hour and 2 clinical hours of transgender content. Eighteen percent (13 of 71) of plastic surgery and 42% (31 of 74) of urology programs offered no didactic education, and 34% (24 of 71) and 30% (22 of 74) provided no clinical exposure, respectively. PDs of programs located in the southern United States were more likely to rate transgender education as unimportant or neutral (23 of 37 [62%] versus 39 of 105 [37%];  = .017). PDs who rated transgender education as important provided more hours of didactic content (median, 1 versus 0.75 hours;  = .001) and clinical content (median, 5 versus 0 hours;  < .001).

[CONCLUSIONS] A substantial proportion of plastic surgery and urology residencies provide no education on transgender health topics, and those that do, provide variable content. PD attitudes toward transgender-specific education appear to influence provision of training.