ArticleCureus2026
Relative Importance of Race, Sex, and Non-demographic Characteristics in Orthopaedic Surgeon Selection: A Survey of U.S. Adults.
Article in Cureus, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionOrthopaedic surgery remains among the least diverse specialties in the United States (U.S.), and our understanding of how patients weigh surgeon demographics relative to other important selection factors remains unclear. This study sought to characterize public attitudes regarding various demographic and non-demographic attributes of orthopaedic surgeons.
methodsA prospective, cross-sectional survey was administered to U.S. adults recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk (age ≥18 years; Human Intelligence Task (HIT) rating >95%) and delivered through Qualtrics. Respondents rated surgeon attributes and referral sources using Likert scales. Analyses used t-tests and χ² tests (p < 0.05).
resultsA total of 510 responses were included for analysis. Support for initiatives to increase diversity was 80.8%. Respondents preferred surgeons with at least 11.2 ± 6.1 years of experience, and willingness to travel was 94.2 ± 247.0 minutes. Most respondents reported no preference for the sex (320, 62.7%) or race (352, 69.0%) of their surgeon. Among respondents who preferred a specific sex of their surgeon, men preferred male surgeons (102, 94.4%), whereas women preferred female surgeons (59, 72.0%) (p < 0.001). Regarding importance, technical competencies dominated: surgical skills were rated "most important" by 82.0% (418), and years in practice by 50.4% (257). Surgeon gender and race/ethnicity were reported as "does not matter" by 60.2% (307) and 65.1% (332), respectively. Referral from a doctor or physical therapist was rated "most important" by 72.2% (368) of respondents. Additionally, 74.3% (379) reported using the internet to find surgeons, and 78.6% (401) reported using it to research credentials.
conclusionDemographic concordance mattered only to a minority of respondents. Perceived factors of competence, years of experience, and trusted referral pathways outweighed surgeon sex or race in orthopaedic surgeon selection in this sample of U.S. adults.
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