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Diversity Among Academic Orthopaedic Surgery Sports Medicine Faculty Across US Residency Programs
Terence L Thomas1, Alexander P Zavitsanos, Claude J Regis
1From the Rothman Orthopaedic Institute at Thomas Jefferson University (Dr. Thomas, Dr. Onor, Dr. Justice, Dr. Broome, Dr. Briggs, Dr. Chang, Dr. Bishop, Dr. Dodson), Philadelphia, PA; the Sidney Kimmel Medical College (Zavitsanos, Regis, Czarnicki, Fellheimer), Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, and the Inova Sports Medicine (Dr. Chang), Fairfax, VA.
Background:
Despite growing attention to workforce diversity in orthopaedic surgery, limited data exist describing the demographic composition of academic sports medicine faculty. This study examines the diversity of sports medicine fellowship-trained orthopaedic surgery faculty across US orthopaedic surgery residency training programs.
Methods:
A cross-sectional analysis of all ACGME-accredited orthopaedic surgery sports medicine faculty was conducted. Faculty data included sex, race, level of professorship, residency attended, year of residency graduation, and h-index. Underrepresented in Orthopaedics (URiO) was defined as non-White and non-Asian by race and all women. Descriptive statistics were performed.
Results:
A total of 812 sports medicine-fellowship trained faculty were included in the analysis: 91% men and 9% women. Racial distribution of faculty was 83% White, 11% Asian, 4% African American, and 1% Hispanic. The region of the United States with the greatest percentage of URiO faculty was the South Atlantic (26%). Most URiO faculty graduated from residency in the last quarter century: 42% from 2012 to 2025 and 41% from 2001 to 2011. No differences were observed between URiO and non-URiO with regard to academic rank or H-Index.
Conclusions:
The present findings highlight persistent disparities in diversity among orthopaedic sports medicine faculty. Intentional efforts remain warranted to mitigate structural barriers in URiO recruitment to the sports medicine subspecialty and orthopaedic surgery as a whole.
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