Changes in Gender and Racial/Ethnic Diversity in US Residency Program Applications From 2018 to 2022
Background Residency application patterns by gender and race/ethnicity offer important insights about diversity in residency recruitment. It is unknown how the COVID-19 pandemic and virtual interviewing affected these patterns.Objective We hypothesized that the introduction of virtual interviews caused an increase in applications submitted per applicant and that there may be differences by gender and race/ethnicity.Methods We extracted publicly reported Electronic Residency Application Service application data from 2018 to 2022 for 14 residency specialties with 1000 or more applicants in 2022 by self-reported gender and underrepresented in medicine (UIM) status. We compared patterns before and after virtual interviews were introduced in 2021.Results Among 401 480 residency applicants, the average number of applications submitted per applicant increased for all specialties between 2018 and 2022 across gender and race/ethnicity. Across all years, women applied to more programs than men i