Effective Mentorship of Women and Underrepresented Minorities in Orthopaedic Surgery

Abstract

Background: Orthopaedic surgery is currently the least diverse medical specialty, and there is little research on the mentorship needs for women and underrepresented minorities (URMs) in orthopaedics. The purpose of this study was to examine the roles and functions of mentorship for women and URMs in orthopaedic surgery, to understand mentorship preferences, and to elucidate barriers to mentorship in orthopaedic surgery. Methods: Members of J. Robert Gladden Orthopaedic Society and Ruth Jackson Orthopaedic Society were invited to participate. An email with an anonymous link to the survey was distributed; the survey was open for responses from September 2020 through February 2021. The survey contained free-response and quantitative items about mentorship and its impact on current activities, career path, and ways to improve mentorship. Descriptive statistics, 1-way analysis of variance, frequencies, and Fisher exact test were used to analyze survey data. Qualitative data were deidentified and analyzed using thematic analysis techniques. Results: A total of 155 participants responded to the survey, of those, 151 (98%) met criteria for analysis. Sixty-four percent of participants were women, 15% identified as Black, 4% identified as Hispanic, and 9% identified as multiracial. Eighty-five percent of respondents had a mentor in orthopaedic surgery. Mentorship was often cited as useful for exposure to role models and skills development. Medical students were most likely to consider gender concordance with their mentor important. URM respondents reported greater importance of sharing race/ethnicity with their mentor (p = 0.005). In qualitative responses, participants commented on identity-specific challenges to mentorship, lack of time and institutional support for mentorship, and the disproportionate burden of mentorship on women and URMs. Conclusions: Mentorship was highly valued among women and URMs in orthopaedic surgery across all career stages. Mentorship attracted students to orthopaedic surgery and allowed residents and surgeons to progress in the field. Sharing racial/ethnic identity in mentor-mentee relationships was important to both trainees and practicing surgeons. Disclosure: The Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest forms are provided with the online version of the article (http://links.lww.com/JBJSOA/A433).

Overcoming the Barriers to Diversity in Orthopaedic Surgery

“…Additionally, a lack of minority individuals among faculty has been perceived by program directors to be the greatest barrier to applications from minority groups 16 . Thus, increasing the visibility of race- or gender-concordant role models will lead to subsequent increases in diversity, but this also increases the mentoring burden on female and URM faculty 83 . However, role models do not have to be from underrepresented groups.…”

“…In a study of orthopaedic residents, >90% saw having a role model in orthopaedics as a positive influence in their specialty selection, and more women (59%) than men (25%) cited having a role model of the same ethnicity or sex as a positive influence 50 . A separate study found that URM respondents were more likely than non-URM respondents to consider mentor-mentee race and/or ethnicity concordance to be important 83 . Research has demonstrated that female medical students attending institutions with greater gender diversity among faculty as well as URM students attending institutions with greater URM representation among faculty are more likely to apply for orthopaedic residency than those attending institutions with less diversity 23,84,85 .…”

The Effect of Underrepresented Minority Mentorship on Orthopaedic Spine Surgery Recruitment and Diversity: A 20-Year Analysis at a Single Institution

“…3,4 This includes spine surgery fellowship. 22 Exposure to and mentorship from URM faculty are instrumental for increasing the number of URM residents who pursue surgical careers. Several studies have found that URM representation among faculty is associated with an increased propensity of URMs to choose careers in academic medicine.…”

Virtual Reality and Surgical Simulation Training for Orthopaedic Surgery Residents

“…Semistructured interviews were chosen over structured interviews because this format makes better use of the knowledge-producing potentials of dialog by allowing more leeway for following up on whatever angles are deemed important by the interviewee, increasing the richness of data 32 . He and other study team members have had past experience conducting qualitative research [33][34][35] . At the time of the study initiation, he was a current orthopaedic surgery resident (Post-Graduate Year [PGY]-3) within the program.…”