Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in US Anesthesiology Residency Matching

Patient outcomes are improved with physician-patient gender, racial, and ethnic concordance. However, female, Black, Hispanic or Latino, Native Hawaiian-Pacific Islander (NH-PI), and American Indian-Native Alaskan (AI-AN) physicians are underrepresented in anesthesiology. The American Association of Medical Colleges 2018 Diversity in Medicine Report revealed that women comprise only 35% of anesthesiologists yet nearly half of medical school graduates are women. More than 77% of anesthesiologists are White or Asian. Anesthesiology applicant and match trends may provide insights needed to address underrepresentation within anesthesiology. We hypothesized that proportionally fewer women and racially and ethnically minoritized applicants apply and match into anesthesiology.

This retrospective observational study identified 47,117 anesthesiology applicants among the 546,298 residency applicants in the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) system between 2011 and 2022 and stratified applicants by self-reported gender, race, and ethnicity. The demographics of anesthesiology trainees reported in the 2014 to 2015, 2018 to 2019, and 2022 to 2023 Accreditation Counsel of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Data Resource Books were used as surrogates for matched applicants as demographics are not reported by the National Residency Match Program. To facilitate comparisons, ERAS applicants were grouped into 4-year epochs to align with consolidated ACGME reports corresponding to the application years. Odds ratios (OR); 95% confidence interval of applying to and matching into anesthesiology were analyzed.

Women had lower odds of applying to anesthesiology compared to men overall (OR, 0.55; 95% CI, 0.54-0.56, P < .0001) and maintained significantly lowered odds of applying within each epoch. Women had similar odds of matching into anesthesiology residency compared to men (OR, 1.10; 95% CI, 1.06-1.14, P < .0001). Black, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and NH-PI, and AI-AN applicants had similar odds to White applicants of applying to anesthesiology but odds of matching were significantly lower overall ( P < .0001) for Asian and NH-PI (OR, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.63-0.70), Black (OR, 0.49; 95% CI, 0.45-0.53), Hispanic or Latino (OR, 0.50; 95% CI, 0.46-0.54), and AI-AN (OR, 0.20; 95% CI, 0.15-0.28) applicants. The odds of matching among some minoritized applicants increased in the ACGME 2022 to 2023 report year.

From 2011 to 2022, women had lower odds of applying to anesthesiology residency than men yet had similar odds of matching. Racial and ethnic minoritized groups had significantly lower odds of matching compared to White applicants despite similar odds of applying. These findings highlight disparities in the anesthesiology match and may help identify opportunities to promote workforce diversity within the field. More detailed reporting of gender, race, and ethnicity in annual match data may better define barriers to entry and identify opportunities for improvement.