Conclusions
The COVID-19 pandemic has placed unprecedented strain on the healthcare system and prompted dramatic resource reallocation to minimize patient morbidity and mortality. These resource shifts have resulted in major changes to previous routines of urology residents. Our study has identified several potential actions that could be taken by residency programs and hospital administration which may optimize urology resident well-being, morale, and education. These include advocating for access to PPE, providing support at both the residency program and institutional levels, instituting telehealth education programs, and fostering a sense of shared responsibility for COVID-19 patients. Our study was limited in scope to urology residents. However, to our knowledge, ours was one of the first national study characterizing COVID-19 pandemic responses among American trainees. Importantly, these findings, if appropriately validated, could be applied to non-urology trainees. Thus, we recommend further research with a large national study of trainees from all specialties to assess the validity and generalizability of our findings.
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