Gender differences in student-evaluated teaching satisfaction among orthopaedic surgery faculty: A three-year analysis in a tertiary academic medical centre set in Southeast Asia

Introduction: The effect of gender on teaching satisfaction in clinical medicine has been mixed. While earlier studies often reported that female physician educators receive lower evaluation scores than their male counterparts, particularly in traditionally male-dominated fields such as surgery, more recent evidence suggests a shift, with female faculty receiving comparable or even higher ratings. We hypothesised that female faculty in Orthopaedic surgery, a predominantly male specialty, would receive lower teaching satisfaction scores due to potential biases arising from the male-dominated nature of the field and societal norms. Methods: A retrospective review of an electronically administered post-lesson teaching evaluation from students from two undergraduate and one postgraduate medical school in the field of Orthopaedic surgery. Evaluations were based on a Likert scale from 1 to 5 on “overall satisfaction” and “educational relevance”. Free text feedback for the educators were also obtained. The data was collected over a three-year period (Academic Years 2021–2024). Results: A total of 3358 student evaluations from 653 teaching sessions were identified. Male faculty delivered 602 teaching sessions with 3110 evaluations. Female faculty delivered 51 teaching sessions with 248 evaluations. A total of 44 male surgeons and 4 female surgeons were involved in education. Female faculty received higher mean satisfaction scores (4.87 ± 0.24) compared to males (4.73 ± 0.47) (p = 0.035). Relevance scores were not significantly different (female 4.87 ± 0.27, male 4.79 ± 0.38, p = 0.16). “Clear” and “engaging” were the top two most frequently used adjectives to describe the teaching characteristics for both genders. The third-ranked adjective was “interactive” for males and “helpful”, “encouraging”, and “interactive” for females in a three-way tie. Conclusions: Female Orthopaedic faculty achieved higher teaching satisfaction scores compared to male counterparts, dispelling possible negative gender stereotypes in both the male-dominated field and within the broader Southeast Asian social context.