The Perry Initiative

The Perry Initiative is a non-profit organization that inspires young women to pursue careers in orthopaedics through day-long outreach programs, Perry Outreach Program - POP for high school students and for first and second year medical students Medical Student Outreach Program - MSOP. Both POP and MSOP feature laboratory-based workshops that introduce surgical and engineering skills along with small-group mentoring from prominent women surgeons, biomedical engineers, and business professionals in orthopaedics Program evaluation results indicate that both POP and MSOP are effective in building the pipeline for women in the orthopaedics workforce. Follow up studies have shown that 85 of POP alumnae are pursuing STEM majors at the college level, with 25 in engineering and 60 in the biosciences. The MSOP has had a similar positive effect on first and second year medical students' intentions to pursue careers in orthopaedics. After participating in the program, 90 of the students who were initially undecided on a specialty, 100 of those initially considering another specialty, and 96 of those who were initially considering orthopaedic surgery indicated that they were now considering or strongly considering applying to orthopaedic surgery residency programs.