No Confidence Diversity Letter Rocks AAOS

History

In 2002, the AAOS’ Board of Directors adopted an AAOS policy statement on social justice that read:

“Physicians should work actively to eliminate discrimination in health care, whether based on race, gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, religion, or any other social category.”

“The Academy has been slow to enact this policy with the patient populations it serves, and especially within its own membership. It took 6 years from the adoption of this policy before the first (and only) Black president of the AAOS was elected and another 17 years before the Academy elected its first woman to lead the organization,” stated the No Confidence letter.

A Plan

In November 2018, the group said it engaged Academy leadership to address issues of the “lack of inclusion of its diverse members in educational activities and the misrepresentation of black [sic] and latinx [sic] populations in educational testing.”

At the request of then AAOS President Weber, the group presented a list of concerns and solutions to the Diversity Advisory Board (DAB) for incorporation into its strategic plan. These solutions were targeted to “counteract the Academy’s lack of progress in resolving issues facing its female and underrepresented minority fellows and trainees.”

The recommendations included:

• Third-party audit of AAOS diversity and inclusion efforts to date by a certified Diversity, Equity and Inclusion consultant.
• Request for designated representation on each AAOS Committee and their leadership to be led by the Committee Appointment Program.
• AAOS to institute a Chief Diversity Officer to report directly to the Board of Directors and CEO
• Development of strategic goals to support AAOS Diversity efforts including increasing the numbers of underrepresented orthopaedic surgeons with defined resource allocation and measurement instruments specifically for this purpose.

However, according to the group, none of these recommendations were presented to the AAOS Board of Directors in April 2019. Subsequently, the Board approved a strategic plan “devoid of any of the recommendations submitted by the organizations and individuals within the Academy specifically tasked to represent the underrepresented.”