To examine and characterize the demographics and scholarly characteristics of academic urology chairmen at the time of appointment.

The chairman of each United States urology residency program as of September 2016 was included in the study. Interim chairmen, as well as programs for which no clearly defined chair could be identified, were excluded. Demographic and academic data were collected via publically available curriculum vitae, departmental websites, Google search engine, and PubMed and Scopus websites.

One hundred thirteen chairmen were included in the study. The majority were male (96%) and mean age at appointment was 46 years (standard deviation = 6.3 years). Mean number of publications and H-index at the time of appointment was 105 and 31.1, respectively. Fellowship training was completed by 75% of chairmen, of which urologic oncology (N = 43), endourology (N = 12), and infertility/andrology (N = 10) were the most common. The most common additional graduate degrees prior to appointment were MBA (N = 7) and PhD (N = 6). The most frequently attended institutions for residency were Johns Hopkins University (13) and Northwestern University (5), whereas Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (13) and Baylor University (7) were the most frequent for fellowship. Twenty percent of chairmen attained the chairman position at their former residency program and 7% at their former fellowship program.

Our study describes the demographic and academic characteristics of urology academic chairmen at the time of appointment. The majority of chairmen are male and specialize in urologic oncology. Chairmen often receive the chair appointment at their former residency program.