Benefits of an Orthopedic Education Research Collaborative: An Innovative Approach

Background Graduate Medical Education (GME) research in orthopedic surgery is an important but underrepresented subject in the medical literature. It was unknown if orthopedic residency leaders were interested in a surgical education research collaborative (orthopedic collaborative). The objectives of this study were to assess the potential benefit of an orthopedic collaborative from orthopedic residency leaders and investigate the factors associated with the support of a research collaborative within a surgical subspecialty. Methodology An anonymous 19-question survey-based study was distributed through REDCap (Nashville, TN, USA) to orthopedic residency leaders in the United States, from July to October 2020. The main outcome was perceived benefit. Additional aspects included program characteristics, challenges in performing resident education research, and organizational issues such as authorship, frequency of study requests, and governance. Results Almost all orthopedic faculty leadership (99%, 73/74) stated that resident education and faculty development research projects would benefit from an orthopedic education research collaborative. In comparison to unsupportive respondents, younger age (P = 0.006), 15 or fewer years in practice (P = 0.04), and having 0 to 100 peer-reviewed publications (P = 0.047) were associated with support for an orthopedic collaborative. Conclusions Challenges related to survey-based study quality and generalizability at single institutions can benefit from multi-institutional collaboration to develop high-quality studies that capture a representative sample to support orthopedic surgery program development.