September 29, 2025
2 min read
Key takeaways:
- A parental leave policy was listed on 4.4% of orthopedic surgery residency program websites.
- Programs with childcare services listed online had a higher proportion of women residents.
CHICAGO — Orthopedic surgery residency programs with family-friendly resources listed on the program and Graduate Medical Education websites had a higher proportion of women residents, according to results presented here.
“While not all of our findings reached significance, likely due to our limited sample size, our results suggest that program-level visibility of family-friendly resources may be a subtle but meaningful factor in recruiting female applicants,” Emily Chu, MD candidate at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, told Healio. “The absence of standardized and clearly communicated policies on residency websites further prevents prospective trainees of both genders from understanding the support they will receive from residency programs.”
Data were derived from DiFiori M, et al. Supporting orthopaedic surgery residents as parents — there is room to improve. Presented at: The Power of Women in Medicine Summit; Sept. 18-20, 2025; Chicago.
Between Dec. 28, 2024, and Jan. 31, 2025, Chu and colleagues collected data on the number of current residents; the number of current women residents; policies related to parental leave, maternity or paternity leave and adoption leave; and any childcare services or access to assisted reproductive technology among all allopathic orthopedic surgery residency program websites accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and the corresponding Graduate Medical Education (GME) websites. Researchers also collected data on the state-level regulations on reproductive health services specific to pregnancy termination, and assigned each state to a group based on whether the regulation was all abortion legal, all abortion illegal or restrictive abortion access.
Emily Chu
“Our main finding was that only 4.4% of orthopedic surgery residency programs listed a parental leave policy on their website and 3.3% listed an adoption leave policy,” Chu said.
She said 1.6% of programs listed childcare services and no programs listed access to assisted reproductive technology (ART). According to Chu, ART is thought to be useful for female surgeons who may have difficulty conceiving to time constraints in medical school and residency, leading to delays in starting a family.
Programs that had childcare services listed on either their residency program website or the GME website had a statistically significantly higher proportion of current women residents, according to Chu. She also said a significantly higher mean percentage of current women orthopedic surgery residents was found in programs that listed an adoption leave policy on their website.
However, Chu said there was no statistically significant difference in the state legislature regarding pregnancy termination and the proportion of current women residents or and whether a program did or did not list those policies on their program website.
“These findings highlight an opportunity for orthopedic programs to establish clear, more standardized parental leave policies,” Chu said. “Transparent communication of these policies could improve resident recruitment and foster a more supportive environment for trainees. This is an actionable and tangible step orthopedic residency programs can take to increase the diversity in their field.”
For more information:
Emily Chu can be reached at emily.chu0002@temple.edu.
Sources/Disclosures
Source:
DiFiori M, et al. Supporting orthopaedic surgery residents as parents — there is room to improve. Presented at: The Power of Women in Medicine Summit; Sept. 18-20, 2025; Chicago.
Disclosures:
Chu reports no relevant financial disclosures.
