'It has been great proving them wrong,' says 1st female orthopedic surgeon from Nepal

Orthopedic
Alan Condon -

Aaradhana Jivendra Jha, MD, an orthopedic trauma fellow at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, is reportedly the first female orthopedic surgeon from Nepal.

In November, she completed a clinical research fellowship in the foot and ankle division at UAB, where she is now pursuing a clinical fellowship in orthopedic trauma.

But during Dr. Jha's residency at B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences in Dharan, Nepal, some of her colleagues placed bets on how long she would last.

She completed her program in 2012 and began working with PossibleHealth in Acham, Nepal, treating underserved people in a rural part of the country. 

"It has been great proving them wrong," Dr. Jha said in a 2015 interview with PossibleHealth.

That year, she set her sights on continuing her medical career in the U.S., where the number of female orthopedic surgeons is also proportionately low.

Women account for 17.8 percent of full-time orthopedic surgery faculty at U.S. medical schools and 6.5 percent of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons membership, according to data from the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

After arriving in the U.S., Dr. Jha added to her orthopedic experience in clinical observer roles at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

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