Karla Bernardi, MD, Deepa V Cherla, MD, Julie L Holihan, MD, MS, Tien C Ko, MD, Lillian S Kao, MD, MS, Casey B Duncan, MD, Mike K Liang, MD. University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Introduction: Although the number of female surgeons and surgery residents has increased over time, women remain under-represented in surgery and academic surgery leadership positions (24%). Surgical research and publications are used as a determinant of hiring and promotion. We hypothesize that among bariatric surgery research, female surgeons are highly under-represented.
Methods: Pubmed was searched for bariatric surgery related publications in four different time periods: 2000-2005, 2006-2010, 2011-2015 and 2016-2017. Articles were randomly selected and the gender of the first and last authors determined.
Results: Of the bariatric surgery publications reviewed, only 5% of first authors and 7.5% of last authors were female surgeons. Even though the proportion of female authors has increased over time, this is not proportional to the increase in the number of female surgeons or surgery residents (Figure 1).
Discussion: Female surgeons are under-represented in bariatric surgery research. The number of female surgeons and residents has a continuous up trend over the last few decades, yet this is not reflected in the number of female authors in bariatric surgery. Although this has improved over time, the improvement has been slow and inadequate.
Presented at the SAGES 2017 Annual Meeting in Houston, TX.
Abstract ID: 87891
Program Number: P767
Presentation Session: iPoster Session (Non CME)
Presentation Type: Poster
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