Voices for Change: Celebrating diversity within the AO

My AO Access journey: Tim Pohlemann

The success of the AO’s effort to remedy disparities in its membership demographics will depend in large part on its leaders’ and its members’ willingness to take risks, according to AO Access Steering Committee member Tim Pohlemann. As AO Immediate Past President and the AO Foundation Board (AO FB) representative to the AO Access Steering Committee, he believes AO Access can be a key changemaker by championing underrepresented surgeons’ candidacies for AO governance roles.

Pohlemann, a highly experienced and accomplished orthopedic trauma surgeon with more than 40 years of experience and nearly 350 listed publications, made generational change a cornerstone of his 2023–25 term as AO President. His focus on giving surgeons AO leadership responsibilities early in their careers is informed by his own experience. Pohlemann who recently retired from the University Hospital Saarland in Homburg, Germany, where he was  director and chairperson of the department of traumatology, hand and reconstructive surgery, early in his career had attended just one AO basic principles course as a participant before he was given the responsibility in co-organizing AO events and courses. 

“At that time in Germany, all trauma residents had to take an AO course: usually you went to the national courses and we had two places for the department every year. I was a rotating surgeon not really attached to the department so I was one of four residents who were sponsored to go to the AO Davos Courses 1985 in Switzerland,” he said. “So, I did one basic course and the next was to be asked to help co-chair and chair AO courses and events. The trust given to a young and engaged surgeon by AO icons was my pathway into the AO.”  

"Even if you fail, it’s better than not trying at all, because you’ll get the experience and you’ll get to help.”


Tim Pohlemann

Be brave 

“This is something I really advise and which was my message as AO President: We should be brave enough to share responsibility with young people,” said Pohlemann. “By the time young surgeons come to us, they’re already at least residents, have already responsibility for patients, even in difficult situations and as a result are certainly ready to take on some responsibility in our organization.” 

Within three years of beginning his AO journey, Pohlemann was invited to join and, nine years later, became chairperson of the AO Technical Commission’s (AO TC’s) the newly established Pelvic Expert Group (PEEG). 

“When I joined [the PEEG], I had just gotten my license as a general surgeon,” he recalled. “Again, it was a situation where I was given responsibility ‘too early’ and there was not a discussion about whether I was ready for it. It was more about, ‘How can I fulfill the needs?”

Be confident in what you do

That’s a message Pohlemann is committed to cascading throughout the AO.

“I want to transmit to the emerging generations of surgeons: Be confident in what you do,” he said, noting that championing diversity, equity, and inclusion particularly for women surgeons has been an important part of his professional career. “My experience is that women surgeons’ perceived and self-confidence is different from their male counterparts. For example, you ask a roomful of young male surgeons, ‘Who here is going to be a leading surgeon?’ and many hands go up. You ask the same question to a 90 percent female group, and very few hands go up.”

Pohlemann attributes women surgeons’ responses to that question as a lack of confidence—or possibly over-confidence on the part of their male counterparts—suggesting that this may also be a reflection of broader societal norms that undervalue women’s self-assessment while rewarding men’s assertiveness.

“Three years ago, I posed this question at a meeting of an association of women in surgery, a group of very good, strong, political women surgeons, where there were four men and 150 women in the room,” he said. “I told them, ‘If you see something like this and you see the difference in how the men respond, it does not mean that all these men will become leading surgeons, but they know that this is now competitive. Be confident that even if you don’t feel prepared, you are ready to take on leadership responsibilities.”

Pohlemann believes that just as organizations must be willing to take the risk of trusting them with greater responsibility, women and other underrepresented groups in surgery must rally the confidence to take on those roles.

“Even if you fail, it’s better than not trying at all, because you’ll get the experience and you’ll get to help,” he said. “My experience is that basically no male is in a better position because women surgeons are often much better prepared, have more knowledge, and are willing to work more. However, male surgeons might be more willing to task risks.”

That’s where AO Access can make a difference.

“In our mentorship programs and with all of the tools and mechanisms we can bring to bear, we really should be helping women and other underrepresented groups to demonstrate their knowledge and competency so that they’re more likely to succeed in competitive situations,” said Pohlemann. “You have to be able to show the people who are hiring you or nominating you to be shortlisted for a governance role that you have the required competencies, you trust your competencies, and that you’re able to transfer those competencies.”

 

"We really should be helping women and other underrepresented groups to demonstrate their knowledge and competency so that they’re more likely to succeed in competitive situations."


Tim Pohlemann

 

A strategic approach to recruitment

Pohlemann said AO Access has made significant strides to ensure more transparent and inclusive recruitment practices, but pointed out that it’s time to establish metrics to gauge whether regional and international Nomination Committees (NomComs) are shortlisting governance candidates that reflect the diversity and aspirations of the AO’s membership and the needs of the patient population that they serve.  

The AO Access Officer and Faculty Selection Processes Task Force, supported by each clinical specality’s AO Access Liaisons, provides guidance and advice to the clinical divisions and clinical unit’s NomComs to implement a clearly defined, fair and transparent pathway and practices for officer recruitment and selection that are harmonized and implemented across AO, using best practices that promote inclusivity and ensure equal opportunity.  

“The currency that we really have is to count how many open positions go to women and other underrepresented groups, given the AO’s international orientation. What do our boards look like? Promoting inclusivity and ensuring equal opportunity based on competence are not only the job of AO Access. They’re everyone’s job,” Pohlemann said. “The big change I want to promote is going from vision to reality which is difficult because any NomCom can find a reason for promoting its buddies.” 

“AO Access needs to monitor and ask how many skilled and educated candidates we have. How can we access the NomComs before elections and ask, ‘Have you considered this person?’” he added. “By making any board, commission and committee aware that a promising young surgeon is interested in a governance position, the responsible people will know they’re being supported and held accountable. I was in academics for 43 years and we know very well how to present candidates and if you don’t forward qualified, underrepresented candidates to the shortlists, nothing changes.” 

Pohlemann is confident that such a strategic approach could result in the election of candidates who truly represent the AO membership and the patients those members serve. He is very pleased that this strategy found full agreement by his both his successor, AO FB President Mark Markel and the whole AO FB, as reaffirmed during the October 2025 meeting in Rome, Italy.

“It’s maybe a radical approach, but we really have the opportunity now to move the AO forward,” Pohlemann asserted. “Why not use AO Access as a network to drive the kind of change we need?”

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