S. L. Gelhard3, L. O’Brien3, S. Vincenti3, D. R. Smego1, R. D. Hobbs1,4, C. H. Selzman1, T. K. Varghese1,2, S. J. Pereira1 1University of Utah Health, Division Of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Salt Lake City, UT, USA 2Huntsman Cancer Institute At The University Of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA 3University of Utah, School Of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT, USA 4Primary Children’s Hospital, Section Of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, Division Of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Department Of Surgery, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Introduction:
With the recent addition of integrated programs for surgical subspecialties, match rates continue to reveal challenges to successfully matching in surgical careers. Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery Integrated training programs remain two of the most competitive matches [1, 2]. With increased national emphasis on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and mentoring programs, applicants have continued to increase across all surgical programs. While strategies to improve surgical diversity are openly discussed across surgical subspecialties, it is unclear if we have seen significant improvement on a national scale [3, 4]. We sought to analyze the match and diversity trends between surgical subspecialties.
Methods:
Publicly available data from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) and Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) were extracted to determine total number, gender, and diversity of surgery applicants and active residents from the years 2018-2021. Applicants and current residents who did not self-identify were excluded. Surgical specialties including Orthopedic Surgery, Otolaryngology, Vascular Surgery (Integrated), Plastic Surgery (Integrated), Thoracic Surgery (Integrated), Neurosurgery, General Surgery Categorical and Preliminary were compared through an analysis completed on Excel.
Results:
From 2018-2021, the diversity of applicants rose by nearly 4% for all surgical specialties. Most specialties demonstrated improvements in diversity representation, with the exception of Vascular Surgery, which declined in 2021 to 38.97%, despite an increase from 39.54% to 42.58% from the three prior years. With comparison of applicants to current active residents, there has been an average increase in diversity representation of 13% across all surgical subspecialties (Fig. 1). The largest improvements occurred within General Surgery (25.52% – 40.80%) and Plastic Surgery Integrated (22.80% – 38.06%). Thoracic Surgery Integrated showed the lowest overall improvements in resident diversity, with 9% growth, over this time period (30.05% – 39.41%). Vascular Surgery Integrated (14.7% -29.04%) programs have improved match percentages, however, Neurosurgery (53.19% – 46.25%) and Thoracic Surgery Integrated (19.45% – 13.39%) remain highly competitive with decreasing match percentages.
Conclusion:
Diversity amongst applicants and residents in surgery remains suboptimal despite active and intentional recruitment of diverse individuals into surgical programs. Continued local and national efforts to eliminate applicant and resident barriers are recommended to achieve greater diversity representation in general surgery and surgical subspecialties.
