This week at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ (AAOS) 2023 Annual Meeting Symposium on “Racial Disparities in Orthopaedic Surgery,” eight panelists spoke from their perspectives in terms of subspecialty, role, and career stage. If a single message emerged, it was that not only do the social legacies of prejudice and inequality persist in orthopaedics but, by many measures, they also afflict the specialty to an outsized extent.
Duke Orthopaedic Surgery faculty members Christian Pean, MD, and Erica Taylor, MD, MBA, participated in the panel.
Dr. Pean, MD, focused on the unique challenges facing Black men in medicine. Lamenting that the rate of Black male applications to medical school has remained flat going back to the 1970s, he noted that Black males such as himself “move through the world with a different cognitive experience” and encounter numerous adversities, including the specter of violence from law enforcement.
He said one practical response to address the challenges faced by Black males in medicine is through mentoring. Still, mentoring has acronym-described “RACE” challenges of its own: Reluctance to discuss race, Access to mentors, Cultural mistrust, lack of racial concordance, and Empathy. Programs that reach the secondary and high school levels can position young males for success in the field.
Dr. Taylor, vice chair of diversity and inclusion in the orthopaedics department, focused her remarks on ways to fortify and advance the DEI structure in an academic medical institution. She noted that barriers to progress in many such institutions include inadequate data collection and problem identification, redundancy of efforts and offerings, no formal coordination, no tangible incentives, and an overemphasis on interpersonal interactions.
She said one way she responded to these issues was “to meet with all the DEI leaders in the various structures,” which resulted in some consolidation and coordination “across lines, which saved money.”