Attrition from ophthalmology residency programs.

Abstract

To investigate the incidence of and reasons for voluntary resident attrition from ophthalmology training programs. Retrospective survey. A survey was mailed to residency program directors of the 121 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited ophthalmology residency programs asking them to report the number of residents who withdrew from training during 2001 to 2002 and the reasons for withdrawal. Of 102 responding programs, 13 (12.7%) had one resident withdraw from training in the academic year 2001 to 2002. These 13 residents represented 1.1% of all ophthalmology residents in training at the responding institutions during that academic year. The most frequent reason for withdrawing was to enter another medical specialty. Voluntary resident attrition from ophthalmology training programs is uncommon. The 1.1% attrition rate in this study is the lowest among published reports of attrition from other specialties.