The Impact of Traveling Fellowships: Perspectives From Rothman-Ranawat Travel Fellows

Background: Traveling fellowships, such as the Hip Society Rothman-Ranawat fellowship, offer orthopaedic surgeons the opportunity to enhance their skills, conduct research, and gain mentorship at top orthopaedic centers. This study aimed to assess the impact of the Hip Society Rothman-Ranawat traveling fellowship on an adult reconstruction surgeon's career.

Methods: A non-incentivized online survey was distributed to the 40 past recipients of the Hip Society Rothman-Ranawat traveling fellowship spanning from 2013 to 2023. The survey comprised short-answer questions and multiple-choice questions to evaluate the impact of the traveling fellowship. Surgeon publication counts and h-indexes were extracted from the Scopus database before the fellowship and at intervals of 3 years, 5 years, and the present post fellowship. Quantitative metrics were adjusted based on the time elapsed since the surgeon completed the fellowship and compared using paired-sample t-tests. This study had a 95% response rate (n = 38).

Results: Following the completion of the fellowship, we observed an increase in publication count and h-index at various intervals compared to the time before the fellowship. The mean annual percentage increase in publication count was 25.6% at the 3-year mark, 37.6% at the 5-year mark, and 29.4% at the present time, all relative to the publication count before the fellowship. Similarly, the mean annual percentage increase in the h-index was 9.7% at the 3-year mark, 9.6% at the 5-year mark, and 4.1% at the present time, all compared to the h-index before the fellowship. Qualitative measures showed previous fellows endorsed that the fellowship positively changed their clinical practice (84% agreement), expanded their network (97% agreement), increased research productivity (82% agreement), and improved surgical technique (74% agreement).

Conclusions: Responses from past Hip Society Rothman-Ranawat traveling fellows suggest that participating in the fellowship positively influenced their career trajectories.