Around the world, women make up less than 5% of the world’s practicing orthopedic surgeons. In terms of future orthopedic surgeons, women now account for 14.2% of orthopedic surgery residents, according to Gudrun Mirick Mueller, M.D.—who is one of the five female orthopedic surgeons at Hennepin Healthcare.
Women Predominate in Minnesota Ortho Practice
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Hennepin Healthcare, located on South Eighth Street in Minneapolis, Minnesota, may well be ahead of the surgeon gender curve since fully five out of nine of the orthopedic surgeons on Hennepin HealthCare’s orthopedic team are women.
Indeed, female surgeons make up more than half of Hennepin Healthcare’s orthopedic team.
Isn’t the reason orthopedic surgeons are predominately male is because orthopedics requires more upper body strength than other specialties to, for example, set fractures, implant large joints or fix scoliotic spines?
Not really, says Dr. Jacqueline Geissler of the Hennepin Healthcare practice.
“Sometimes strength or size are perceived to be problems for women in the orthopedics field, but the reality is that finesse is really most effective,” says Dr. Geissler, who grew up on a farm where she became accustomed to long hours, physical labor and working with tools. But with regard to surgical tools Dr. Geissler admits, “We are still trying to find a company willing to make appropriately sized equipment for those of us with smaller hands—for the more petite men, too!”
The five female doctors who now dominate the Hennepin Healthcare practice are Gudrun Mirick Mueller, Jacqueline Geissler, Nancy Luger, Emily Wagstrom and Jessica Downes.
Having strong mentors in medical school is a significant factor for women considering a career in orthopedic surgery.
The five women surgeons report that they are “proud of the work we do, our good patient outcomes, and high satisfaction scores. We also very much respect our male colleagues who encouraged our hiring, have mentored us in our early careers, and continue to be amazing partners. We are very lucky to have such a supportive and cohesive team,” they said.
More information about orthopedic care at Hennepin Healthcare is available here.
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This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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