Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA 02114. E-mail address:
J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2013 Oct 2;95(19):e1441-6. doi: 10.2106/JBJS.L.00666.
Sex diversity in orthopaedic surgery lags behind other surgical specialties. Women comprise 13.2% of orthopaedic residents and 15% of full-time faculty, despite 47.8% of graduating medical students being women. The purposes of this study were to demonstrate how orthopaedic surgery has been less successful in recruiting women compared with general surgery and to identify the sex-specific factors that influenced orthopaedic surgery residents to choose their specialty.
A search of graduate medical data was performed to compare the recruitment of women into orthopaedic and general surgery. Next, a seven-question survey was e-mailed to 2629 orthopaedic residents by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Questions were formulated to detect why orthopaedic surgery residents chose their specialty. Data were collected over six weeks and responses were analyzed with use of one-tailed t tests to make comparisons of responses on the basis of sex.
The historical data search showed that the percentage of female representation in both orthopaedic and general surgery has increased since 1968, but it has increased significantly faster in general surgery than in orthopaedic surgery (p < 0.0001). Five hundred and twenty-nine (20%) of the 2629 orthopaedic surgery residents who were contacted responded to the survey. Of the respondents, 114 (22%) were female and 415 (78%) were male. Several significant differences were found in the responses between the sexes. These include the timing of the decision to enter orthopaedic surgery and positive influences in choosing orthopaedic surgery as a specialty. Additionally, women, significantly more than men, believed that more of their peers entered general surgery because of greater acceptance by senior faculty in that field (p < 0.0001).
To our knowledge, this study is the first to survey residents on their perceptions of orthopaedic surgery and to identify factors that may hinder the recruitment of women into orthopaedic surgery. Our data show that increased exposure to orthopaedic content during medical school and increased female mentorship may help recruit more women into the orthopaedic surgery workforce.
矫形外科的性别多样性落后于其他外科专业。尽管毕业医学生中有 47.8%是女性，但女性在矫形外科住院医师中占 13.2%，在全职教师中占 15%。本研究的目的是展示与普通外科相比，矫形外科在招募女性方面的不成功之处，并确定影响矫形外科住院医师选择专业的具体性别因素。
对研究生医学数据进行了搜索，以比较女性进入矫形外科和普通外科的情况。接下来，美国矫形外科医师协会通过电子邮件向 2629 名矫形外科住院医师发送了一份七项问题的调查。问题的制定是为了发现为什么矫形外科住院医师选择了他们的专业。数据收集了六周，并使用单侧 t 检验分析了数据，以根据性别比较回答。
历史数据搜索显示，自 1968 年以来，矫形外科和普通外科中女性的代表性百分比都有所增加，但普通外科的增加速度明显快于矫形外科（p < 0.0001）。联系的 2629 名矫形外科住院医师中有 529 名（20%）对调查做出了回应。在回应者中，114 名（22%）是女性，415 名（78%）是男性。在性别之间的回答中发现了几个显著的差异。这些差异包括进入矫形外科的决定时间以及选择矫形外科作为专业的积极影响。此外，女性比男性更相信，由于该领域资深教师的更大接受度，更多的同龄人选择了普通外科（p < 0.0001）。
据我们所知，这项研究是第一个调查住院医师对矫形外科看法的研究，并确定了可能阻碍女性进入矫形外科的因素。我们的数据表明，在医学院期间增加接触矫形内容和增加女性导师可能有助于招募更多女性进入矫形外科劳动力队伍。
