Neira I. Algazzaz, Alexander Y. Z. Li, Helen E. Giannakopoulos, Brian E. Ford
Helen E. Giannakopoulos, Brian P. Ford
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine
Introduction
This is a retrospective chart analysis served to investigate whether patients within the Philadelphia community have predilections for visiting oral and maxillofacial surgeons based on the same race or not, and to instill other healthcare professionals to increase workforce diversity and cultural competency around the world.
Methods
We performed an exhaustive database search at the University of Pennsylvania from 2011 to 2021 of oral and maxillofacial surgery attending physicians operating room logs. Of all 16 billing providers, we included 14 oral and maxillofacial surgeons and excluded 2 oral medicine specialists. We calculated Philadelphia demographics based on US Census in 2010 and 2020. We categorized all attending physicians into races of Caucasian (8), Middle Eastern (2), or Asian (4) and hypothesized that each group of surgeons have predilection to have higher percentage of same race patients seen in the operating room compared to the racial distribution within Philadelphia from 2010 to 2020. We also looked at the racial distribution of patients seen by each oral and maxillofacial surgeon and hypothesized that each attending should see a similar distribution compared to Philadelphia demographics, noting if there is any significant difference among any individual. Because the Hispanic identity can be identified from person of any race, we studied it separately from the seven races reported by the US Census: Caucasian, African, Asian, American Indian, Pacific Islander, Unknown, and Other.
Results
A total of 85,985 out of 88,437 operating room procedures that satisfied both inclusion and exclusion criteria were studied at the University of Pennsylvania. There were more than twice the volume of operating room logs among Caucasian patients than African patients. No single racial group of oral and maxillofacial surgery attendings saw a similar distribution of demographics compared to Philadelphia census. The most populated races in Philadelphia, which are African, Caucasian, and Asian, are seen the greatest number of times by Asian (61%), Caucasian (69%), and Middle Eastern (10%) attendings. All attendings individually and collectively had different distribution of patient demographics and less Hispanic patients compared to Philadelphia demographics.
Conclusion
There is no specific predilection for patients towards oral and maxillofacial surgeons on the same race based on operating room logs. Multiple factors may confound our study including but not limited to location of practices, type of procedures, number of follow-ups, status of attending whether recently retired or newly hired, and epidemiology of maxillofacial pathology.