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Gender Based Trends In Academic Vascular Surgery
Nitin Jethmalani, MD, Gurbani Suri, MD, Cleo Siderides, MD, Ninon Forter-Chee-A-Tow, MD, Sophie Kush, BS, Jing Li, MD.
New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York, NY, USA.
Objective: Significant progress has been made in reducing gender disparities in medicine over the last decade. According to the American Association of Medical Colleges, more women than men are now matriculating into medical schools. This study aims to evaluate gender trends in academic vascular surgery, specifically focusing on the prevalence of women in professorial roles and leadership positions, such as program directors and division chiefs.
Methods: A comprehensive list of vascular surgery fellowship and integrated training programs was obtained from the American College of Graduate Medical Education. Publicly available data were collected from academic institutions, including information on sex, academic rank, graduation year, and training programs of all current vascular surgery faculty listed on departmental websites. Descriptive statistics were analyzed, and multinomial logistic regression was then used to analyze professorial role adjusting for years in practice.
Results: A total of 1,097 vascular surgery faculty members were analyzed, of which 257 (23%) were women. Female vascular surgeons had shorter median practice duration compared to their male counterparts (7 years vs 15 years, p<0.001). Women were more likely to have graduated from integrated vascular programs (27% vs 13%, p<0.001) and more likely to work at institutions offering such programs (72% vs 63%, p<0.001). Leadership roles were mostly occupied by men: 28 women served as program directors compared to 104 men (11% of females vs 12% of males, p=0.5) although the fraction of men versus women in these roles is equal. Only 9 women (3.5%) were division chiefs, compared to 121 men (14%, p<0.001). Regarding professorial roles, females are less likely to carry professorial status compared to men (13% vs 26%, p<0.001), but on logistic regression analysis males have an odds ratio of associate professor status of 1.13 and an odds ratio of 1.16 for professor status when compared to females, after adjusting for years of practice.
Conclusions: Despite an increase in the number of women in academic vascular surgery, they are less likely to hold program director titles, department chair roles, or full professor positions. Although when accounting for years in practice, the disparity gap closes significantly. The field of vascular surgery is clearly making significant strides towards gender equality, and these findings highlight the need for targeted initiatives to continue promoting equity in academic vascular surgery.
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