BACKGROUND

The orthopaedic surgery residency program website represents a recruitment tool that can be used to demonstrate a program's commitment to diversity and inclusion to prospective applicants. The authors assessed how orthopaedic surgery residency programs demonstrated diversity and inclusion on their program websites and whether this varied based on National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, top-40 medical school affiliation, university affiliation, program size, or geographic region.

METHODS

The authors evaluated 187 orthopaedic surgery residency program websites for the presence of 12 elements that represented program commitment to diversity and inclusion values, based on prior work and ACGME recommendations. Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to assess whether NIH funding and other program characteristics were associated with commitment to diversity and inclusion on affiliated residency websites.

RESULTS

Orthopaedic surgery residency websites included a mean of 4.9 ± 2.1 diversity and inclusion elements, with 21% (40/187) featuring a majority (7+) of elements. Top 40 NIH funded programs (5.4 ± 2.0) did not have significantly higher website diversity scores when compared with nontop-40 programs (4.8 ± 2.1) ( = 0.250). University-based or affiliated programs (5.2 ± 2.0) had higher diversity scores when compared with community-based programs (3.6 ± 2.2) ( = 0.003).

CONCLUSIONS

Most orthopaedic surgery residency websites contained fewer than half of the diversity and inclusion elements studied, suggesting opportunities for further commitment to diversity and inclusion. Inclusion of diversity initiatives on program websites may attract more diverse applicants and help address gender and racial or ethnic disparities in orthopaedic surgery.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE

Level V.