Surgery in Practice and Science (Dec 2022)
Representation of women and underrepresented minorities among grand rounds speakers in orthopaedic surgery
Abstract
Objective: This study sought to determine the gender and racial distribution of grand rounds speakers in orthopaedics at large academic medical centers and to assess whether they align with the demographics of current faculty and trainees. Design: Schedules of grand rounds speakers and topics from the 2020–2021 academic year were collected from 49 orthopaedic surgery residency programs across the United States. Speakers were categorized by trainee status, academic rank, institutional affiliation, institutional National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding rank, gender, and underrepresented minority (URM) status. Descriptive statistics and two-way frequencies were performed. One-way tests of proportions were calculated comparing female and URM speaker proportions to demographic distributions of orthopaedic surgeons for residents, home program faculty, and visiting faculty at the national level. Results: Of the 890 grand rounds presentations, 121 were given by women (13.6%) and 47 by URMs (5.3%). One-way tests of proportions showed lower than expected proportions of women and URM home attending presentations (p<0.001), lower than expected proportions of URM resident presentations (p = 0.02), and higher than expected proportions of URM visiting attending presentations (p<0.001), when compared to national demographics of orthopaedic residents and attendings. Conclusions: This study adds clarity on the representation of women and URMs in orthopaedic surgery grand rounds, which was previously not quantified. Our results show where representation may be improved, while also suggesting that, overall, orthopaedic surgery is showcasing female and URM speakers on par with the current population of orthopaedic surgeons. This effort requires continued support and should be reflected in other areas of professional advancement, such as pay, promotion, awards, leadership roles, and other areas of formal recognition.
