Primary Practice Emphasis Area and Diversity Among Board-Certified Ophthalmologists

To describe the ophthalmology primary practice emphasis area by underrepresented in medicine (URiM) status using the American Board of Ophthalmology (ABO) Diplomates database.

Retrospective cohort study.

The study was based on a retrospective review of the ABO database from 1992 to 2020. The datapoints recorded included age at time of graduation and at time of certification, sex/gender, self-reported race/ethnicity, year of graduation and of certification, region of practice in the United States, and the self-reported primary practice emphasis area within ophthalmology. The URiM cohort included self-identified Black, Hispanic/Latinx, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander individuals. Statistical analysis was conducted using Pearson χ², Student t, and Fisher exact tests.

A total of 575 (10.1%) ophthalmologists self-identified as URiM, vs 5132 (89.9%) as non-URiM. Diplomates who were URiM were more likely to be female and to be older at the time of ABO certification than those who were not URiM (P < .001). Over time, there was a steady decrease in the percentage of diplomates who were URiM (P < .001). There was a statistically significantly higher percentage of URiM ophthalmologists who reported glaucoma as their primary area of emphasis (P = .039) and non-URiM ophthalmologists who reported oncology, pathology, international, or genetics (P = .015), but no significant differences in the remaining subspecialties (P ≥ .123).

There were modest differences in reported ophthalmology primary practice emphasis areas between URiM and non-URiM ABO diplomates. Despite efforts to increase diversity in ophthalmology, the percentage of graduating URiM ABO diplomates has decreased over the past 2 decades.