Female Sports Medicine Fellowship–Trained Academic Orthopaedic Surgeons Earn Significantly Lower Salaries Than Their Male Counterparts

Purpose To identify whether there is a gender‐based disparity in salary among sports medicine fellowship–trained academic orthopaedic surgeons. Methods Deidentified faculty compensation data were obtained from the Association of American Medical Colleges, which are compiled after distributing surveys to 157 Liaison Committee on Medical Education–accredited medical schools through a deidentified internet‐based survey application. Mean and median data for the 2023 calendar year was extracted from this dataset for male and female sports medicine fellowship–trained orthopaedic surgeons and stratified in a cross‐sectional fashion by position, including assistant professor, associate professor, and professor. Independent sample t‐tests and Cohen's d test were performed with Python and shown through a bar graph. Results A total of 312 orthopaedic surgeons were included in this analysis, with 268 (85.9%) male and 44 (14.1%) female surgeons. Sports medicine fellowship–trained female surgeons earn significantly lower salaries than their male counterparts at the positions of assistant professor ($504,994 vs $654,697; P < .001), associate professor ($617,612 vs 776,754; P < .001), and professor ($486,303 vs $820,406; P < .001). The effect size of the difference between male and female salaries is greatest at the position of professor ( d = 7.5), although there is a large difference in means between male and female assistant professors ( d = 4.2) and associate professors ( d = 3.4). Conclusions Female sports medicine fellowship–trained academic orthopaedic surgeons earn significantly lower salaries at the assistant professor, associate professor, and professor levels. However, data were not able to be stratified based on additional variables that may influence salary among orthopaedic surgeons such as age, years in practice, geographic location, practice focus, and surgical volume. Clinical Relevance This study shows that gender‐based disparities exist in compensation among sports medicine fellowship–trained academic orthopaedic surgeons.