Surgical Instrument Designers and Inventors—Where are the Women?

Abstract

Historically, surgical instruments were designed by men for male surgeons. Although instrumentation has changed with the changing paradigms of surgery, it has failed to adapt to the changing surgical workforce. Almost 30% of surgeons are female and nearly 90% of surveyed female surgeons report poor instrument design and associated musculoskeletal injuries from use. Understanding the current state of handheld surgical instrument design, published literature was reviewed, surgical instrument collections were contacted, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark databases were queried to identify public patents and pre-granted applications of female inventors of handheld surgical instruments. Twenty-five female inventors were identified from published literature and 1551 unique females hold patents. This number pales when the denominator of male inventors is considered. Hence, to address the female surgeon’s lack of instrumentation and design, there is a critical need for participatory ergonomics whereby both the female surgeon and engineer collaborate on design.