The Impact of COVID-19 on the Orthopaedic Surgery Residency Experience

The rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus led to dramatic changes in graduate medical education and surgical practice. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Orthopaedic Surgery residency education in the United States.

A survey sent to all residents of the 201 ACGME-accredited Orthopaedic Surgery programs in the United States.

A total of 309 Orthopaedic surgery residents responded to our survey. A subset of 283 (91.6%) residents surveyed reported decreased Orthopaedic-related clinical duty hours due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and 300/309 (97.1%) reported a decrease in surgical case volume. 298 (96.4%) residents reported that their program had scheduled activities or made changes to supplement their education, most common being virtual and video conferences 296/309 (95.5%), required practice questions 132/309 (42.7%), required reading or pre-recorded lectures 122/309 (39.5%), in-person small group meetings or lectures 24/309 (7.77%), and surgical simulation activities 17/309 (5.50%). Almost half (152/309 (48.9%)) of respondents reported their overall resident education was somewhat or much worse due to the impact of COVID-19. Over a quarter (81 (26.2%)) of residents reported their well-being was negatively impacted by residency-related changes due to COVID-19.

Based on these results, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about significant changes to the training experience of Orthopaedic surgery residents in the United States. Although the majority of residents in this sample had favorable opinions of the educational changes their programs have instituted in light of the pandemic, clinical duty hours and case volume were reported to have substantially decreased, with a large portion of residents viewing their overall resident education as worsened and reporting negative impacts on their overall well-being.