A comprehensive evaluation of career trajectories of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons William P. Van Wagenen fellows

To elucidate the current academic, demographic, and professional factors influencing the career trajectories of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) William P. Van Wagenen (VW) fellows while also identifying trends that may influence future fellow selection. Fifty-five VW fellows were identified from 1968 to 2022 from the AANS website, along with corresponding institutions, countries, and continents of study. Additional variables such as age at selection, accruing additional degrees, neurosurgical subspecialty, the number of publications at the time of selection, funding, and h-index were collected from various publicly available sources. Eighty-five percent of VW fellows were male and had a mean age of 34 ± 2.4 years. Ninety-one percent of fellows chose to study in Europe, and 40% had earned additional degrees. Univariate linear regression demonstrated a positive relationship between the year of selection and both age at selection (p = 0.0094) and the number of publications at hire (p