D. Cervantes1, K. Delfino1, K. Besserman1, S. Thuppal1 1Southern Illinois University School Of Medicine, Springfield, IL, USA
Introduction: There have been various efforts put forth by several organizations such as the AAMC to implement more diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the domain of medicine. However, certain surgical programs and specialties have been lacking in heterogeneity as opposed to other areas of medicine. We examined demographic trends and evaluated regional differences in gender, race and ethnicity in general surgery (GS) applicants and residents to investigate possible disparities.
Methods: Number of individuals who applied and number who were accepted for GS residency was obtained from the AAMC’s Electronic Residency Applicant Service between 2012-2022. This data included gender, and race and ethnicity of applicants and residents based on the four regions: Central, Northeast (NE), South, and West.
Results: There was a significant upward trend in the proportion of female applicants over the time periods studied in all regions, as well as significant increase in the number of applicants over the time periods studied in all regions except the NE. Also, each region had a significant upward trend in the proportion of female residents in GS as well as an increased number of female residents over the time periods evaluated in all regions. Regions such as Central (7.38% to 11.00%, P = .024), Northeast (11.71% to 16.02%, P = .0001), South (10.18% to 14.69%, P = .0014), and West (6.69% to 9.29%, P = .004) all saw statistically significant trends in match rates for female residents in GS. Underrepresented racial and ethnic minority (URiM) applicant proportion has been observed to have a significant downward trend in the NE and South and there was no change in the proportion of URiM applicants in the Central and West throughout the 11-year period. We observed a significant upward trend in the proportion of URiM residents of GS in Central, Northeast, and West regions. Our data indicated a significant upward trend in the match rate of URiM residents in all regions except the West (P = .4835). The Central region saw a 2.51% to 5.39% (P = .024) increase in URiM acceptance rates from 2012-2022. The region with the highest upward trend in URiM match rates was the Northeast with a jump from 8.05% to 11.74% (P = .004).
Conclusion: Findings of this study and other publications have shown that general surgery has been progressing the most in terms of gender representation and URiM inclusion as opposed to other surgical training and subspecialties. The gender gap is beginning to close for GS as well as in other specialties outside of surgery. In contrast, the data suggests URiM representation still lacking in some areas during the studied period of time. DEI efforts have enabled some positive change, but should be well received throughout all regions where underrepresentation still exists in certain programs.