Representation Matters: A Higher Percentage of Women Orthopaedic Surgery Faculty Is Associated With an Increased Number of Women Residents.

Abstract

Introduction: Orthopaedic surgery has been recognized as one of the least diverse surgical specialties. Previous studies have demonstrated that women are heavily underrepresented within orthopaedic surgery. The purpose of this study was to determine whether orthopaedic surgery residency programs with a higher presence of women faculty had a higher proportion of women residents.

Methods: The Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database was used to identify all orthopaedic surgery residency programs in the United States. Resident and faculty's sex and degree were recorded in addition to faculty administrative title (eg, program director, chair) and academic rank (clinician, professor, etc). Pearson correlation coefficients were used to compare the number of women residents with the number of women faculty.

Results: A total of 192 orthopaedic surgery programs were analyzed. Of the 5,747 faculty members and 4,268 residents identified, 13.1% (n = 752) and 22.6% (n = 963) were women, respectively. The number of women residents markedly correlated with the number of women faculty in leadership positions (r = 0.516, P < 0.001), such as chief or chair. The most significant correlations were among women with the academic role of "professor" (r = 0.575, P < 0.001), "assistant professor" (r = 0.555, P < 0.001), and women who held faculty positions but held no higher academic appointment (r = 0.509, P < 0.001). Program directors and assistant program directors were not found to have significant correlations with the number of women residents.

Conclusion: This study demonstrates a positive correlation between women faculty and residents at orthopaedic surgery residencies. Some academic positions, such as division chief, held more significant associations, whereas other positions, such as professor emeritus, were not held by any women, thereby limiting statistical analysis. Further investigation into minority representation in orthopaedic surgery and initiatives to address the observed disparities is paramount.