Bergstein Victoria E, Schmerler Jessica, Seidenstein Alexandra H, LaPorte Dawn M
Division of Hand Surgery, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.
JB JS Open Access. 2024 Dec 6;9(4). doi: 10.2106/JBJS.OA.24.00142. eCollection 2024 Oct-Dec.
Orthopaedic surgery has the greatest degree of gender disparity among all medical specialties, presenting a little-explored opportunity to recruit women into orthopaedics early in the pipeline, particularly as undergraduate students. This study aimed to characterize the opinions of female premedical students regarding orthopaedic surgery as well as to assess the effectiveness of a virtual intervention in increasing interest in or improving attitudes toward the field.
In this prospective study, recruitment emails were sent to premedical advisors, who then circulated a survey that solicited responses from female-identifying premedical students. The survey consisted of questions about demographics, Likert scale questions about opinions of orthopaedic surgery, and an open-response section. At the end of the survey, respondents were provided the option to register for a Zoom panel, in which 4 female physicians described their experiences as women in orthopaedic surgery. Survey responses were analyzed using unpaired tests for continuous variables and analysis of variance and Tukey's analysis for Likert scale responses.
A total of 259 female premedical students completed the survey. Respondents most strongly agreed with the statements "orthopaedics is a male-dominated field" and "I wish I learned more about orthopaedics in college." Interest in pursuing orthopaedic surgery was greater among respondents who had undergone orthopaedic surgery, personally knew an orthopaedic surgeon, personally knew a female orthopaedic surgeon, or had shadowed in orthopaedic surgery. After attending the panel, attendees' interest in orthopaedic surgery significantly increased (p < 0.001), and attendees disagreed significantly more strongly with the notion that gender would limit their opportunities in orthopaedics (p = 0.013).
Early exposure to orthopaedic surgery was consistently associated with increased interest among respondents. In addition, exposure to female orthopaedic surgeons was associated with more positive opinions of orthopaedics, and the mentorship intervention proved effective at increasing interest in the field. These results reinforce the need for targeted, early-exposure programs to recruit premedical women into orthopaedic surgery.
Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
在所有医学专科中，骨科手术领域的性别差异最为显著，这为在早期阶段，尤其是在本科阶段吸引女性投身骨科领域提供了一个有待深入探索的契机。本研究旨在了解女性医学预科学生对骨科手术的看法，并评估虚拟干预措施在提高她们对该领域的兴趣或改善态度方面的效果。
在这项前瞻性研究中，研究人员向医学预科顾问发送了招募邮件，这些顾问随后分发了一份调查问卷，以征集自我认定为女性的医学预科学生的反馈。该调查包括有关人口统计学的问题、关于对骨科手术看法的李克特量表问题，以及一个开放式回答部分。在调查结束时，受访者可以选择报名参加一个Zoom小组讨论，在该讨论中，4位女医生分享了她们作为女性骨科医生的经历。使用非配对t检验分析连续变量的调查回复，并使用方差分析和Tukey分析来分析李克特量表回复。
共有259名女性医学预科学生完成了调查。受访者最强烈认同的观点是“骨科是一个男性主导的领域”以及“我希望在大学期间能更多地了解骨科”。接受过骨科手术、认识骨科医生、认识女骨科医生或曾观摩过骨科手术的受访者对从事骨科手术的兴趣更高。参加小组讨论后，参与者对骨科手术的兴趣显著增加（p < 0.001），并且参与者对性别会限制她们在骨科领域发展机会这一观点的反对态度也明显增强（p = 0.013）。
早期接触骨科手术一直与受访者兴趣的增加相关。此外，接触女骨科医生与对骨科更积极的看法相关，并且导师指导干预措施在提高对该领域的兴趣方面被证明是有效的。这些结果强化了开展有针对性的早期接触项目以吸引医学预科女性投身骨科手术领域的必要性。
四级。有关证据水平完整描述，请参阅作者指南。
