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AAHKS Women in Arthroplasty Committee addresses diversity, mentorship

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DALLAS — Two events held here helped showcase the goals of the new Women in Arthroplasty Committee of the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons. One of the events, a booth crawl, for which about 71 women in arthroplasty registered, from orthopedic surgeons to nurses, physician assistants and others, was held Friday, Nov. 8.

On Saturday, Nov. 9, the Women in Arthroplasty (WIA) Committee held an invitation-only luncheon focused on understanding and overcoming the ergonomic challenges that female total joint arthroplasty surgeons may face, such as patient positioning and the basic physics and strength it takes to carry out prosthesis implantation.

The WIA Committee consists of chair Audrey K. Tsao, MD; vice chair Antonia F. Chen, MD, MBA; five committee members and seven committee volunteers.

“Apparently, as committees go, we’ve taken off running, which is great,” Chen told Healio.com/Orthopedics.

Mentorship is another area of focus of the WIA Committee. The group has built a mentorship model that gives women in the specialty a way to apply to be connected with a female mentor.

“We have an active mentorship program where we understand that a reason that a lot of women do not necessarily go into arthroplasty is because they do not have strong mentorship. So, we provided that,” Chen said.

The group met for the first time at the AAHKS Annual Meeting, here. During the booth crawl event, participants broke into smaller groups and visited various exhibits where they learned from either a company’s female engineer or corporate executive about new arthroplasty products, developments and related technology.

Chen said the WIA Committee has research projects underway into workplace injuries and other issues relevant to female arthroplasty surgeons, and “we have a lot more on the horizon.” – by Susan M. Rapp

Reference:

www.aahks.org/about-us/councils-and-committees/women-in-arthroplasty/