Interest in Orthopedic Surgery Residency: A Google Trends Analysis

Google Trends, a powerful online search tool, was used to evaluate the association between the United States applicant pool for orthopedic surgery residency and Internet queries for orthopedic residency and orthopedic salary. From 2006 to 2015, searches for orthopedic salary and orthopedic residency were conducted by Google Trends. Data from the National Residency Match Program (NRMP) in the same time period was plotted and subsequently compared to the Google Trends results. From 2006 to 2015, Google Trends demonstrated an increase in orthopedic residency queries with the largest increase between 2008 and 2010. Orthopedic salary searches increased over the study period, with the sharpest increase from 2008 to 2009. NRMP demonstrated an increase over the study period in U.S. medical school orthopedic surgery applicants and positions filled. The Google Trends analysis mirrored the data from the NRMP, suggesting that online search tools could be of important predictive value for medical students’ interest in orthopedic surgery residency. (Journal of Surgical Orthopaedic Advances 27(2):98–101, 2018)
Key words: Google Trends, medical student, orthopedic residency, orthopedic salary