Commentary
DEI Runs Wild Within the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons
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“Diversity, equity, and inclusion are not just buzzwords. They represent an essential element of our society.”
That’s what Dr. Joaquin Sanchez-Sotelo, then-president of the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES), said in a January 2025 video promoting the organization’s DEI committee and various diversity efforts.
The video specifically highlighted the ASES’s various DEI initiatives and attempts to boost diversity in this orthopedic subspecialty.
For instance, one of the co-chairs of the ASES’s DEI committee, Dr. Sara Edwards, discussed the partnerships and programs the ASES engages in to further these goals.
“[W]e also give several scholarships to our residency programs […] and get [residents] exposed to shoulder, elbow again in an attempt to recruit more diversity within our field,” Dr. Edwards said.
Both Dr. Edwards and Dr. Sanchez-Sotelo discussed ASES’s partnership with nonprofit organization Nth Dimensions.
According to an archived version of Nth Dimensions’ “About” webpage, Nth Dimensions’ mission was to create a talent pipeline “to address the dearth of women and underrepresented minorities (URMs) in orthopaedic surgery.”
However, that language has since been removed from the organization’s website.
Additionally, the “Become an Nth Scholar” webpage previously advertised the organization’s “ongoing mission to diversify the physician workforce.”
Indeed, in the ASES January 2025 newsletter, the organization characterized Nth Dimensions’ summer internship program as helping “build professional relationships as well as mentorship opportunities for under-represented minorities while giving these young medical students the chance to learn more about Shoulder and Elbow surgery.”
The ASES newsletter also hints at several other initiatives that suggest potentially discriminatory recruiting patterns: “There are a number of DEI achievements we can celebrate […]: advisory role when faculty is selected for various programs, selection of scholars for the Nth Dimensions summer internship, funding support for underserved individuals that wish to attend the ASES Fellows and Residents Course, and further collaboration with Nth Dimensions and other organizations to bring high school, college and medical students to our Annual Meeting and expose them to what ASES has to offer.”
The ASES DEI committee’s mandate explicitly furthers these goals.
Taken together, it’s clear that the ASES is hyper-fixated on increasing diversity within this orthopedic surgery subspecialty and engaging in potentially discriminatory practices to achieve this goal.
This undermines the very foundation of medicine, which should prioritize competence, training, and skill above all else.
Limiting opportunities based on group identity rather than individual merit is inherently discriminatory and contrary to basic principles of fairness and excellence in patient care.
