Student Presenter(s): Nicholas Piniella, Hannah English, Robert Steinberg, Sanket Desai, and Karthik Madhira
Faculty Mentor: Joanne DiFrancisco-Donoghue
School/College: Osteopathic Medicine, Old Westbury

In 2019, 6% of practicing orthopedic surgeons held DO degrees. Historically, the sparsity of DOs at major research institutions may have limited their research opportunities. This study examines current trends in authorship and journal articles in sports medicine journals. Four journals were reviewed: American Journal of Sports Medicine, Arthroscopy, Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, and Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine. All issues were searched during the years 2017, 2019, and 2021. Only original research articles conducted in the United States were eligible for inclusion. Articles were categorized and the number of authors and their degrees were recorded. Descriptive statistics are reported. The proportion of DOs was compared using chi-square analysis. Of 2939 articles, 1282 were excluded. Of the 1657 eligible articles, 91 had at least one DO author (5.5%). Articles were most commonly about the knee (32.5%) and hip (17.5%). Across the 1657 articles, 11387 authors were identified (6.9 authors per article), of which, 7082 were MDs (62.2%) and 127 were DOs (1.1%). Of the 127 DOs, 32 were first authors and 10 were last authors. From 2017 to 2021, the number of DO authors increased from 23 to 57, and the proportion of DOs to all physicians increased from 1.1% to 2.2% (p=0.007). While DO publishing rates in sports medicine journals have doubled since 2017, DO authorship is still lacking compared to MD counterparts, perhaps due to differences in institutional funding.