Foot & Ankle Surgery — Specialty Profile

Exploratory, not prescriptive. This profile blends hard data (pay, match rates, burnout, demographics, each sourced and dated) with generalizations and synthesized opinion about culture and "who fits." It's here to help you get curious and go find out for yourself, not to tell you who to become. Numbers marked ⟳ verify change every year; check the linked source before you quote one. Last reviewed: 2026-08-04.

Also called: foot and ankle, F&A, orthopedic foot and ankle surgery. A 1-year fellowship entered after an orthopedic surgery residency, not a residency you match into from medical school. Organ system: everything below the knee, which is twenty-six bones per foot carrying the whole body.

Subspecialty fellowship of Orthopedic Surgery.

The 30-second version

Foot and ankle surgery owns the part of the skeleton that has to be both a rigid lever and a shock absorber several thousand times a day, and it is the orthopedic subspecialty where a US-trained applicant essentially cannot fail to match. The territory runs from ankle arthritis, where the field is in the middle of a genuine technological shift from fusion toward total ankle replacement, through the deformity work of bunions and adult flatfoot, the sports injuries of Achilles rupture and ankle instability, the trauma of pilon and calcaneus fractures, and the diabetic foot, where the job is limb salvage and the alternative is amputation. That last category is the one outsiders underestimate: a substantial share of the field's work is preventing amputations in patients with diabetes and neuropathy, and it is as consequential as anything in orthopedics. The trade at the center of the field: technically varied, largely elective, ambulatory-friendly surgery in a subspecialty that is genuinely easy to enter, attached to a parent specialty that is one of the hardest to enter in all of medicine.

Quick dashboard (details and sources below)


Training after med school	6 years (5 yr orthopedic surgery residency + 1 yr foot and ankle fellowship)
Total from college start	~14 years (4 undergrad + 4 med school + 5 residency + 1 fellowship)
Training chain	Med school (4) → Orthopedic Surgery (5 yr) → 1 yr foot and ankle fellowship (SF Match)
Competitiveness (as an orthopedic fellowship)	Very low for US graduates: 99.2% of US and Canadian applicants matched across 2022–2024, against 43.7% of international graduates ⟳
Typical full-time pay	No foot-and-ankle survey line. Parent orthopedics runs ~$610,000–$700,000 median, among the highest in medicine ⟳
Pay vs. parent (general orthopedics)	Around or somewhat below the orthopedic median, well above most of medicine ⟳
Lifestyle	Largely elective and outpatient, ambulatory-surgery-friendly, with trauma call as the variable ⟳
Burnout	No subspecialty figure; parent orthopedics is ~44%, among the lowest of all specialties on Medscape 2024 ⟳
% women	~16.4% of foot and ankle fellowship applicants (2022–2024); parent orthopedics 6.8% practicing, ~24% of residents ⟳
DO / IMG accessibility	Gated behind orthopedics (of the 963 positions filled in the 2026 Match, 12.6% went to DO seniors, 14.0% counting DO graduates, and 1.0% to IMGs), and DO applicants are ranked lower at the fellowship stage ⟳

What they actually do

Ankle arthritis is where the field is changing. For decades the answer to an arthritic ankle was fusion, which relieves pain and eliminates motion. Total ankle arthroplasty has matured substantially, and the modern practice involves genuinely choosing between fusion and replacement based on deformity, bone stock, adjacent joint disease, and what the patient needs from the joint. That decision, and the revision work that follows failed replacements, is a growing part of the subspecialty.

Deformity correction is the volume. Hallux valgus, which is the bunion, is among the most common elective operations in orthopedics and has its own long-running argument about which of many described procedures to use. Adult acquired flatfoot from posterior tibial tendon dysfunction requires reconstruction combining tendon transfer and osteotomy. Cavovarus deformity, often neurologic in origin, sits at the other end.

Sports and tendon work covers Achilles rupture and tendinopathy, lateral ankle instability, osteochondral lesions of the talus, and the turf and forefoot injuries of athletes.

Trauma is a substantial share at most centers: ankle fractures, which are among the most common operative fractures in the body, plus the technically difficult pilon and calcaneus fractures where soft-tissue timing matters as much as fixation.

The diabetic foot is the field's public health work. Neuropathic ulceration, osteomyelitis, and Charcot arthropathy, managed with a limb-salvage goal in coordination with vascular surgery, infectious disease, and podiatry. The stakes are concrete: a preserved limb against a below-knee amputation, in a population where amputation predicts mortality.

Representative procedures: total ankle arthroplasty and ankle arthrodesis · hallux valgus correction · flatfoot reconstruction with tendon transfer and osteotomy · Achilles repair and reconstruction · lateral ligament reconstruction for ankle instability · ankle, pilon, and calcaneus fracture fixation · arthroscopy of the ankle and subtalar joint · Charcot reconstruction and diabetic limb salvage · hindfoot and midfoot fusions · osteochondral lesion treatment.¹

A day in the life: outpatient clinic and an ambulatory operating list. Clinic is high-volume and heavily weight-bearing-radiograph driven, mixing post-operative follow-up, deformity consultations, diabetic foot surveillance, and injections. Operating days run several short-to-medium cases, most of them same-day discharge, which makes this one of the more ambulatory-surgery-center-compatible corners of orthopedics. Total ankle replacements and complex reconstructions are longer and usually hospital-based.

On call: depends entirely on the job. In a practice where the foot and ankle surgeon covers general orthopedic trauma call, nights are real. In a purely elective referral practice, they mostly are not. This is the single most variable feature of the field and the one to ask about specifically.

The training path & time to completion

Medical school (4 yrs) → orthopedic surgery residency (5 yrs, integrated) → 1-year foot and ankle fellowship → practice.¹²

The residency is the hard gate, and it is one of the most competitive matches in all of medicine, with 12.6% of its 963 filled positions going to DO seniors, 14.0% counting DO graduates, 1.0% to IMGs, and 6.8% women among practicing orthopedic surgeons.³ The parent orthopedic surgery profile covers it.
The fellowship is one year and matches through the separate SF Match, which is where orthopedic fellowships run rather than through the NRMP.²
There is no board. The American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery offers subspecialty certification in only two areas, Orthopaedic Sports Medicine and Surgery of the Hand, and foot and ankle is neither. A foot and ankle surgeon practices under general ABOS certification, with the fellowship as the credential.³
Total from the start of college: about 14 years.
More than 90% of orthopedic residents do a fellowship, so this is a near-universal step rather than an unusual one.³

How competitive is it?

This is a two-tier match result, and it deserves the detail.

A 2025 study in Foot & Ankle Orthopaedics analyzed 286 applicants across the 2022 to 2024 match years:

133 US and Canadian-trained applicants, of whom all but one matched, a 99.2% rate.⁴ ⟳
153 international medical graduates, of whom 43.7% matched.⁴ ⟳
82.8% of applicants were male and 16.4% female.⁴
For US applicants, no factor predicted matching, because essentially everyone did. For international graduates the number of interview invitations was the variable that mattered, with matching probability approaching 95% at around six interviews. USMLE Step 2 scores did not significantly separate matched from unmatched international applicants (232 against 228).⁴

The broader orthopedic fellowship picture confirms the pattern. A 2025 JBJS Open Access study of 7,128 US-based applicants across 2012 to 2023 found overall fellowship match rates of about 90% for both men and women, with a mean of 91% for allopathic graduates against 82% for osteopathic graduates, and concluded that osteopathic graduates are consistently ranked lower by orthopedic fellowship programs. Foot and ankle specifically ran 92% for women and 95% for men.⁵ ⟳

The honest read. If you are a US-trained orthopedic resident and you want foot and ankle, you will get it. The competitive event in this career was matching orthopedic surgery, which is among the hardest things to do in medicine. Everything after that is comparatively straightforward, with two real exceptions: international graduates face a genuinely difficult fellowship match here, and DO graduates are measurably disadvantaged across orthopedic fellowships generally.

Board: none specific to foot and ankle. General ABOS certification in orthopedic surgery.³

Compensation — the robust version

No compensation survey isolates foot and ankle surgery, so this reasons from the parent field, which is unusually well measured.

The parent anchor, and it is a large one. Orthopedic surgery runs roughly $610,000–$700,000 median total compensation and is frequently the highest-paid specialty in the country. The percentile ladder the orthopedic profiles on this site carry — 25th percentile around $520,000, median around $703,000, 75th around $890,000, and 90th above $1.1 million — comes from an aggregator's directional planning model rather than from a licensed survey, and it is pending a replacement.³ ⟳

Where foot and ankle sits within that. The subspecialty is generally regarded as around or somewhat below the orthopedic median rather than at the top. The high-earning orthopedic subspecialties are those with high-volume, high-RVU, ambulatory-friendly procedures and strong implant-driven throughput, particularly adult reconstruction and sports medicine. Foot and ankle cases are generally shorter and lower-RVU than a hip or knee replacement, and a meaningful share of the practice is clinic-based conservative management and diabetic foot care that generates little surgical revenue.

What raises it. Ambulatory surgery center ownership is the single largest lever, and foot and ankle is well suited to it because most cases are same-day. Total ankle arthroplasty carries implant-driven revenue closer to arthroplasty economics. And in orthopedics generally, partnership and ownership move income far more than subspecialty choice does.

Keep the comparison honest. Even at the lower end of orthopedic subspecialties, this sits near the top of medicine as a whole. The gap being described is against other orthopedic surgeons, not against physicians generally.

Limited-data caveat: no MGMA, Doximity, or Medscape line for foot and ankle surgery was located, and the positioning within orthopedics is a structural inference from case mix rather than a measured figure. The parent median is survey-based; the parent percentile ladder is not, and is pending. Benchmark against orthopedic surgery and against the specific elective-to-trauma and ASC arrangement of the job. ⟳

Lifestyle

Largely elective and outpatient, which is a genuine advantage within orthopedics. Most cases are same-day, and the clinic is scheduled.
Ambulatory surgery centers suit the case mix, which means more schedule control than hospital block time allows.
Call is the variable that decides your life. A foot and ankle surgeon in a group that shares general orthopedic trauma call has real nights; one in a referral practice has few. Ask about this before anything else.
Physical demands are moderate for orthopedics. Less than arthroplasty or spine, more than a clinic-based specialty.
Geographic flexibility is excellent. Bunions, ankle fractures, Achilles ruptures, and diabetic feet exist everywhere, so this subspecialty is not tied to academic centers or large markets.
Residency remains brutal even though the attending life is not, which the parent profile documents in full.³

Lifestyle rating: 3/5. Elective, outpatient, and ambulatory-friendly, deducted for whatever share of general orthopedic trauma call the job carries.

Wellbeing — the part to take seriously

No foot-and-ankle-specific wellbeing data exists. Inherit orthopedics, which sits at roughly 44% burnout, among the lower group of specialties despite the hours.³ ⟳

The distinctive satisfaction is restored walking. The interventions in this field return people to being upright and mobile, which patients experience directly and immediately. Limb salvage in a diabetic foot is the clearest version: the alternative is an amputation that changes a life and shortens it.

The distinctive frustration is the outcome variability of deformity surgery. Bunion correction has a long-standing reputation for patient dissatisfaction despite radiographic success, because expectations about pain, shoe fit, and appearance are frequently misaligned with what surgery delivers. Managing that gap before operating is a real professional skill, and getting it wrong produces unhappy patients from technically adequate operations.

Diabetic foot care carries a specific weight. These are chronically ill patients with neuropathy, vascular disease, and often limited resources, whose ulcers recur, whose adherence is difficult for structural reasons, and where an amputation eventually happens despite everything. It is the part of the practice most likely to feel like fighting a losing battle, and also the part where the wins matter most.

Career longevity is good by orthopedic standards, since the cases are shorter and less physically punishing than arthroplasty or spine.

Who's in the field (demographics)

Women: about 16.4% of foot and ankle fellowship applicants across 2022 to 2024, against 6.8% of practicing orthopedic surgeons on AAMC's 2024 data and about 24% of orthopedic residents.⁴³ Orthopedics has the lowest proportion of women of any specialty in medicine, and the fellowship applicant pool runs ahead of the practicing workforce. Across all six orthopedic subspecialties the JBJS study finds no gender difference, at a mean of 90% for women and 90% for men over 2012 to 2023, and both rose significantly across the period. Its foot-and-ankle row is 92% for women (116 of 126) against 95% for men (442 of 465), a spread too small and too specific to read as a pattern. The rise is also why that row and the 99.2% in the dashboard are not in conflict: they are the same trend measured over 2012 to 2023 and over 2022 to 2024.⁴⁵ ⟳
DO: parent orthopedics gave 12.6% of its 963 filled positions to DO seniors in 2026, 14.0% counting DO graduates. At the fellowship stage, osteopathic applicants matched at a mean of 82% against 91% for allopathic applicants across 2012 to 2023, and the study concluded that osteopathic graduates are consistently ranked lower by orthopedic fellowship programs.³⁵ That is a measured disadvantage rather than an impression. ⟳
IMG: the sharpest divide in the field. International graduates made up 153 of 286 foot and ankle applicants across 2022 to 2024 and matched at 43.7%, against 99.2% for US and Canadian graduates.⁴ ⟳
Underrepresented in medicine: no subspecialty figure. Orthopedic surgery has among the lowest URiM representation of any specialty, and is inherited. Diabetic limb loss falls disproportionately on Black and Hispanic patients, so the population most affected by the field's highest-stakes work is not the population doing it. ⟳

Culture, personality & the online stereotypes

Who gravitates here: orthopedic residents who liked deformity correction and biomechanics. The field draws people interested in the mechanical logic of gait and alignment, and it rewards planning, since foot and ankle reconstruction is largely a geometry problem worked out before the incision. It also attracts people who want an elective, outpatient orthopedic practice without the physical demands of arthroplasty or spine. As always, plenty of people in the field do not fit any single mold.

The stereotypes. Community perception rather than fact, each with a kernel and an unfair edge:

"Orthopedics for people who did not want the big cases." The dismissive version, and unfair. Total ankle arthroplasty, Charcot reconstruction, and pilon fractures are among the technically hardest work in the specialty.
"Bunion surgeons." Hallux valgus is genuinely high-volume, and it is also one of many things the field does.
"The turf war with podiatry." Real and long-running. Podiatrists and orthopedic foot and ankle surgeons treat overlapping conditions with different training routes and different scope-of-practice rules by state, and the professional relationship ranges from close collaboration to open competition depending on the market.
"Everyone matches." Accurate for US graduates, and it makes the fellowship a comparatively relaxed decision inside an otherwise ferociously competitive specialty.⁴

What people say online (synthesized and paraphrased, not quotes): across trainee and physician forums, foot and ankle reads as a comfortable, sensible subspecialty with a specific reputation problem. The recurring practical theme is that the fellowship is easy to get for US graduates and that this makes it a low-risk choice. A second thread is podiatry, discussed with more heat than any other topic, covering scope of practice, referral competition, and hospital privileging. A third is compensation, generally described as solid but not top-tier within orthopedics, with ASC ownership named as the lever that matters. A fourth is bunion outcomes, discussed with weary honesty about patient expectations. A fifth, more enthusiastic, is total ankle replacement, described as the thing making the field more interesting than it was fifteen years ago. The tone is practical.

Voices from the field. Paraphrased from published sources, with links to the originals:

A 2025 Foot & Ankle Orthopaedics study of 286 applicants across the 2022–2024 match years found that all but one US or Canadian-trained applicant matched, a 99.2% rate, against 43.7% for international medical graduates, with interview count the operative variable for international applicants and no factor distinguishing matched from unmatched US applicants.⁴
A 2025 JBJS Open Access study of 7,128 US-based orthopedic fellowship applicants across 2012–2023 found equal match rates for men and women but a persistent gap by degree type, at a mean of 91% for allopathic against 82% for osteopathic applicants, concluding that osteopathic graduates are consistently ranked lower.⁵
ABOS certifies only two orthopedic subspecialties, sports medicine and surgery of the hand, so foot and ankle surgeons practice under general certification, the same structure the adult reconstruction profile documents for arthroplasty.³

Why people choose it / why people leave

Why choose it: an elective, outpatient, ambulatory-friendly orthopedic practice · biomechanically interesting reconstruction where planning matters as much as technique · total ankle arthroplasty as a genuinely evolving technology · diabetic limb salvage, which is as consequential as anything in the specialty · excellent geographic flexibility · a fellowship US graduates reliably match into · lower physical demands than arthroplasty or spine.

Why leave or avoid it: compensation around or below the orthopedic median in a specialty where the top subspecialties earn far more · bunion and deformity surgery with a real patient-expectation problem · diabetic foot work that often ends in amputation despite everything · ongoing scope competition with podiatry · trauma call in many jobs · no subspecialty board.

Best fit if: deformity correction and biomechanics interest you · you want an elective outpatient practice within orthopedics · you want geographic freedom · you are comfortable with a large chronic-disease component · ambulatory surgery suits how you want to work.

Not for you if: you want orthopedics' income ceiling, which is elsewhere · patient dissatisfaction after technically good surgery would frustrate you · you want exclusively high-acuity work · the podiatry scope question would wear on you.

The FLI angle — Foot & ankle surgery for first-gen, low-income & immigrant students

Where it fits FLI realities well:

The income is among the highest in medicine. Parent orthopedics runs a median around $700,000 with a 90th percentile above $1.1 million, and even the lower orthopedic subspecialties sit near the top of the profession.³ For a family whose position this changes, the within-orthopedics comparison matters far less than the absolute number.
Geographic freedom is genuine. The conditions this field treats exist in every market, so you can practice near family rather than where an academic center happens to be.
The fellowship is not a barrier for US graduates. A 99.2% match rate means that once you are an orthopedic resident, this door is open.⁴
The work reaches an underserved population. Diabetic limb salvage disproportionately serves patients who are poor, publicly insured, and Black or Hispanic, and it is work where continuity and trust materially change outcomes.

Risks to name honestly:

The residency is the barrier and it is severe. Orthopedic surgery is among the hardest matches in medicine: 12.6% of its 963 filled positions went to DO seniors, 14.0% counting DO graduates, 1.0% to IMGs, and 6.8% of practicing orthopedic surgeons are women, the lowest share of any specialty.³ Research output, away rotations, and connections decide it, and all three cost money. If orthopedics is the goal, the plan starts in the first two years of medical school.
The DO disadvantage does not end at the residency. Osteopathic applicants matched orthopedic fellowships at 82% against 91% for allopathic graduates, and the study's conclusion is that programs rank them lower.⁵ That is a documented second filter, and it arrives before you assume the hard part is over.
For international graduates this fellowship is genuinely hard, at 43.7% against 99.2%, and interview count is what separates outcomes.⁴ If you are an IMG, the practical implication is to apply broadly and target six or more interviews.
PSLF fits poorly with the high-earning version. Private practice and ASC ownership do not qualify; academic orthopedics does and pays less. In a specialty that pays this well, aggressive repayment is usually the better strategy, but decide deliberately.

Bottom line for FLI: an income near the top of medicine, real geographic freedom, and a fellowship that will take you once you are through the door. The door is the whole problem, and it is one of the least accessible in medicine. If you clear it, this is a subspecialty that lets you live where your family is and do work that matters most to the patients least served, which is an unusual combination in a field this well paid.

Fun facts

A US-trained applicant essentially cannot fail to match this fellowship. All but one of 133 US and Canadian applicants matched across the 2022–2024 cycles, a 99.2% rate.⁴
International graduates faced a different match entirely in the same cycles, at 43.7%, and made up more than half the applicant pool.⁴
The ankle used to have one answer and now has two. Total ankle arthroplasty has matured enough that choosing between replacement and fusion is a real clinical decision rather than a formality.
Diabetic limb salvage is a mortality question. Below-knee amputation in this population is associated with substantially reduced survival, which is why preserving a foot is worth as much surgical effort as it takes.
There is no board in it. ABOS certifies only orthopedic sports medicine and surgery of the hand, so every other orthopedic subspecialty practices under general certification.³
Orthopedic fellowships run on SF Match rather than the NRMP, which surprises applicants coming from any other specialty.

Sources

Clinical scope and fellowship content — ankle arthritis and arthroplasty, deformity correction, sports and tendon injury, foot and ankle trauma, and diabetic limb salvage. Composite of published US orthopedic foot and ankle fellowship curricula and American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society materials. (accessed 2026). ↩ ↩²
Match structure. Orthopedic fellowships, including foot and ankle, are matched through the separate SF Match rather than the NRMP, with the American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society coordinating the foot and ankle match. AOFAS Fellowship Match Program (https://www.aofas.org/education/fellowship-match-program) and SF Match Orthopaedics Fellowship (https://sfmatch.org/specialty/orthopaedics-fellowship/Overview), accessed 2026. ⟳ ↩ ↩²
Parent-field figures for orthopedic surgery: typical comp ~$610k–$700k median, with a percentile ladder of 25th ~$520k, median ~$703k, 75th ~$890k, and 90th above $1.1M, frequently the highest-paid specialty; 5-year integrated residency with more than 90% of residents doing a fellowship; among the hardest specialties to match; burnout ~44%, among the lowest; 6.8% women practicing and 23.9% of residents; 12.6% of positions to DO seniors, 14.0% counting DO graduates, and 1.0% IMG in the 2026 Match. ABOS offers subspecialty certification only in Orthopaedic Sports Medicine and Surgery of the Hand, so no foot and ankle board exists. Burnout: Medscape Physician Burnout & Depression Report 2024 (n=9,226, fielded July–October 2023) puts orthopedics at 44%, in the lowest third against an all-physician average of 49%. That report is paywalled and returns HTTP 402, so the row reaches this site through three independent relays that agree on the edition, the instrument, and every specialty — Healthgrades Pro (https://resources.healthgrades.com/pro/the-most-and-least-burned-out-physicians-by-specialty) and Advisory Board (https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2024/01/31/physician-burnout). Women practicing: AAMC, 2025 Key Findings (2024 data), https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/data/2025-key-findings — orthopedic surgery 6.8%, still the lowest of any specialty. Women residents: ACGME, Data Resource Book, Academic Year 2024-2025, Table C.21, https://www.acgme.org/globalassets/pfassets/publicationsbooks/2024-2025_acgme_databook_document.pdf — orthopaedic surgery 23.9%. DO and IMG shares: NRMP, Results and Data: 2026 Main Residency Match, May 2026, Table 2, https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Main_Match_Results_and_Data-2026.pdf — orthopaedic surgery filled 100% of 963 positions, and its Table 2 row reads 765 MD seniors, 53 MD graduates, 121 DO seniors, 14 DO graduates, 5 US IMGs and 5 non-US IMGs, and its applicant-type columns sum to the 963 filled, so 12.6% DO seniors, 14.0% DO seniors plus graduates, and 1.0% IMG, the lowest IMG share of any large specialty. Corrected 2026-08-17: three places on this page said orthopedics runs "single-digit IMG matches per year." The 2026 Match put ten IMGs into the field, one past single digits, so the phrase is now false by one match and will wobble again next cycle. All three now use this footnote's own 1.0%, which makes the same point more durably. Four places also rounded AAMC's 6.8% women to "~6%," which rounds the wrong way on a figure the page invites the reader to check; they now carry 6.8%. Swept 2026-08-17: 1.0% IMG, about ten matches of 963, and 12.6% DO seniors or 14.0% counting DO graduates, all against the same 963 positions. This page's IMG figure was already right and is unchanged. Its DO figure was the ambiguous half: "14.0% DO" and "roughly 14% DO" named no denominator, and 14.0% is the seniors-plus-graduates cut while the family's other seven files carried "13–14% DO," which reads as a measurement range and is two cuts of one Table 2 row. Both figures now travel with the quantity they measure. The five-year DO-senior series is flat rather than rising, 12.6% (2026) · 14.1% (2025) · 12.8% (2024) · 13.2% (2023) · 12.7% (2022), with the most recent move downward. The percentile ladder above is not MGMA's. It comes from FastRVU's orthopedic-surgery income guide, which calls itself "a directional planning model centered on $703,000 as an illustrative reference point, not a licensed survey result" and says its percentile table "is not a licensed MGMA table"; the orthopedic surgery profile's own [^10] carries the full record. The false attribution is removed here, and the figures are pending a licensed survey rather than requoted. See the orthopedic surgery, adult reconstruction, and orthopedic sports medicine profiles on this site. ⟳ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³
Foot and ankle fellowship match outcomes. "Applicant Factors for Matching Into an Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Fellowship," Foot & Ankle Orthopaedics, published March 23, 2025 — 286 applicants across the 2022–2024 match years; 133 US and Canadian-trained applicants with a 99.2% match rate (all except one matched) against 153 international medical graduates at 43.7%; 82.8% male and 16.4% female; for US applicants no factors could be associated with matching given near-universal success; for international graduates the number of interview invitations was associated with matching, with roughly 95% match probability approaching six interviews; USMLE Step 2 scores did not differ significantly between matched and unmatched international applicants (232 against 228, p=0.167). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11938521/ ⟳ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³
Orthopedic fellowship match by degree and gender. "Orthopaedic Fellowship Match: How Do Degree and Gender Type Affect Match Rates?", JBJS Open Access, 2025, analyzing SF Match data 2012–2023 — 7,128 US-based applicants (3,058 international graduates excluded); 939 female (13%) and 6,093 male (87%); 1,028 osteopathic (14%) and 6,100 allopathic (86%); mean match rates 90% ± 6% for women and 90% ± 4% for men, both rising significantly over the period; 82% ± 8% for osteopathic applicants against 91% ± 3% for allopathic; foot and ankle specifically 92% for women (116 of 126) against 95% for men (442 of 465); subspecialties analyzed were trauma, sports medicine, foot and ankle, pediatrics, adult reconstruction, and shoulder and elbow. Corrected 2026-08-17: the demographics bullet asserted that "match rates do not differ by gender" and then offered the 92%-against-95% foot-and-ankle row as the evidence for it. The study's equal-rates conclusion is about the pooled 90%/90% across all six subspecialties, not about this one row. The same bullet left the page carrying two US-applicant match rates for foot and ankle, 99.2% in the dashboard and thesis and 92% to 95% here, from studies with different windows and different exclusions, with nothing telling the reader why they differ. The reconciliation was available in this study and strengthens the page: both sexes' rates rose significantly across 2012 to 2023, so a mean in the low 90s over that window and 99.2% over 2022 to 2024 are one trend at two points. The authors conclude that men and women match at equal rates and that osteopathic graduates are consistently ranked lower by orthopaedic fellowship programs. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12002389/ ⟳ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

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