When Elizabeth Matzkin, MD, learned she had been named second vice president of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, the moment landed with surprise, and gravity. While the role marks a professional milestone, it also reflects the slow, hard-won evolution of leadership within a specialty where women remain significantly underrepresented.
“I was very surprised when I got the phone call,” Dr. Matzkin said. “I was a little taken aback and shocked, but super excited. I can’t be more excited to have this role.”
A leadership role that carries weight beyond the title
For Dr. Matzkin, chief of women’s sports medicine and fellowship director at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery at Harvard Medical School in Boston, the appointment is deeply personal.
She has spent her career caring for athletes at every level. Beyond the recognition of her clinical expertise, it represents an opportunity to influence the future of orthopedics on a national stage, particularly for women who are still carving out space in the field.
“I love practicing sports medicine. I love being an orthopedic surgeon,” she said. “But the role was also really important to me as a woman. A lot of my career has been mentoring athletes, but probably more importantly, mentoring the next generation of women in orthopedics. To have a national platform to represent is really amazing.”
Dr. Matzkin is on track to become just the second female president in the AAOS’s 95-year history, a statistic that underscores how uncommon visible female leadership in orthopedics still is, and why it matters.
Women’s sports medicine gains long-overdue momentum
Her leadership arrives as women’s sports medicine is entering a period of accelerated growth. Female athletes are advocating for better, more equitable care, while professional women’s leagues are expanding their reach and visibility across multiple sports.
“Things are changing drastically,” Dr. Matzkin said. “We’re seeing more women taking care of female athletes, and we’re seeing female athletes advocating for better, more comprehensive care — equal care to male athletes, equal pay, equal playing fields and even equal television time.”
That cultural shift is increasingly evident on the global stage. Women now make up a majority of Olympic athletes, and investment in women’s professional sports continues to rise.
“Everything’s kind of shifting and changing,” she said. “I wish I could be a young female athlete again. It’s a great time.”
Progress without a quota
Within orthopedics, Dr. Matzkin sees progress, but not perfection. She is clear equity does not require rigid numerical targets, but rather sustained openness and opportunity.
“I’m not sure orthopedics is ever going to be 50-50, and that’s OK,” she said. “It doesn’t need to be. It just needs to be a place where everyone knows they’re welcome if it’s what they want to do.”
That perspective is shaped by her own training experience. As the first woman in both her residency and fellowship programs, visibility came with scrutiny, reinforcing the importance of credibility built through performance.
“I really felt like I had to put my head down and prove myself,” Dr. Matzkin said. “I felt like there were always extra eyes on me. I didn’t worry about leadership. I just focused on being an excellent surgeon and taking excellent care of my patients.”
“Be so good they can’t ignore you”
That approach continues to guide how she mentors trainees today, particularly women early in their careers who are eager to take on leadership roles.
“I tell my students, residents and fellows: you need to be an excellent surgeon first,” she said. “Be so good they can’t ignore you. Everything will fall into place.”
At the same time, Dr. Matzkin is candid about the additional demands often placed on women, from being overextended on committees to navigating tokenism.
“At some point, you have to figure out which opportunities are most important,” she said. “If I’m going to show up, I want to provide excellent quality in whatever I’m asked to do.”
She acknowledges that expectations are not always equal, but she views resilience as part of the work.
“I still think there’s a little bit of a stigma that you have to be just a little bit better than the white guy next to you,” Dr. Matzkin said. “But that’s OK. We can do hard things.”
Why representation shapes patient care
For Dr. Matzkin, diversity in leadership is not just symbolic; it directly influences how musculoskeletal care is delivered day to day.
In a field where sex-based differences have historically been underrecognized, who is in the room, and who is leading, shape what questions get asked and what factors are considered in diagnosis and treatment.
“Seeing a physician that looks like you or talks like you or comes from a culture like you allows patients to feel more comfortable,” she said.
That comfort extends beyond individual patient encounters and into how entire care teams approach female athletes. After more than 15 years of working alongside Dr. Matzkin, her partners have grown significantly more comfortable addressing topics such as menstrual health and other sex-specific factors that can influence injury risk, conversations that were once routinely deferred.
“When I first started, partners would send female athletes with stress fractures to me and say, ‘She’ll ask you those questions,’” Dr. Matzkin said. “Now they’re like, ‘You know what? I got this.’”
The shift, she said, reflects how diversity within orthopedic teams elevates care across the board, expanding clinical awareness and improving outcomes not just for female athletes, but for the entire patient population.
Opening doors — and widening the pipeline
While orthopedics still trails other specialties in representation, Dr. Matzkin sees meaningful progress in how organizations are approaching leadership development.
“We’re lagging behind in orthopedics, for sure,” she said. “But we’ve also made leaps and bounds. We talk about it. We’re aware of it. We’re tracking diversity because we know representation builds the pipeline.”
The most significant change, she said, is access.
“When I trained, the door wasn’t wide open. You had to force it open,” Dr. Matzkin said. “Now it’s open. You just have to be willing to take on the challenge.”
Making leadership feel possible
As one of the highest-ranking women in AAOS’s history, Dr. Matzkin hopes her visibility makes leadership feel attainable, especially for women balancing demanding careers with full lives outside the hospital.
“I hope it shows that you can do this,” she said. “I’m married to another orthopedic surgeon. I have three daughters. We’ve figured out how to balance it.”
She does not minimize the difficulty, but she rejects the idea that ambition requires sacrificing personal goals.
“You don’t have to forego anything if this is your goal,” Dr. Matzkin said. “The support is out there. It may not be handed to you on a silver platter, but you can find it.”
She credits mentors, particularly women, who helped move her forward when opportunities were limited.
“Without a little push from some who came before me or some who are behind me, I probably wouldn’t be here either,” she said.
As Dr. Matzkin steps into national leadership, the moment represents more than individual achievement. It signals a specialty slowly expanding who leads, and who belongs.
