The Missing Pieces in Sports Medicine

Sports medicine is a thrilling field. But, there's a problem. It's not as diverse as the U. S. population. The study took a close look at sports medicine trainees from two time periods. The first was from 2010 to 2015, and the second was from 2016 to 2021. There were over 3, 000 trainees in total. Most of them were from family medicine. A smaller group was from physical medicine and rehabilitation (PMR). And the smallest group, but important nonetheless, was from emergency medicine (EM). PMR stands out because it had the highest number of female and Asian trainees. That's great! But, family medicine had the most Black trainees. These numbers should make us think. How do we get more people from underrepresented groups into sports medicine? Let's talk about the numbers. From 2010 to 2015 and 2016 to 2021. It might surprise you to learn that the number of female trainees stayed the same. Both periods had 30% female trainees. However, the number of White trainees went down. This change was significant. White trainees made up 72% of the group from 2010 to 2015, but only 65% from 2016 to 2021. Black, Asian, and Hispanic trainees made up a similar amount of the group in both periods. Now, here's a big question. Are some groups underrepresented in sports medicine? The data says yes. Female, Black, and Hispanic trainees were far less common in sports medicine. American Indian/Alaskan Native trainees were also much less common. This means we have work to do. We need to think about the best ways to invite and support trainees from underrepresented groups. If we do this, we can create a workforce that looks more like the U. S. population.