Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
JAMA Netw Open. 2019 Apr 5;2(4):e192103. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.2103.
Gender equity is a prominent issue in the medical profession. Representation of female physicians at academic meetings has been identified as an important component of gender equity; however, this topic has not been systematically assessed.
To determine the trend during the last decade in the proportion of speakers who were women at major academic medical conferences held in Canada and in the United States.
DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: A cross-sectional analysis was conducted examining the gender of speakers listed in meeting programs of medical conferences held in Canada and in the United States in 2007 and from 2013 through 2017. Eligible conferences were identified using a sensitive search strategy, and a previously validated tool was used to analyze each meeting speaker list and to assign a proportion of female speakers. Conferences held in English language, hosted in Canada or the United States, and targeted to a physician audience with 100 or more attendees were included. The comparison group was active physicians in Canada and in the United States.
The mean of the proportion of female speakers at each conference per year.
In total, 181 conferences with 701 individual meetings were analyzed, including 100 medical and 81 surgical specialty conferences. The proportion of women ranged from 0% to 82.6% of all speakers. The mean (SD) proportion of female conference speakers for all meetings analyzed significantly increased from 24.6% (14.6%) for 40 meetings in 2007 to 34.1% (15.1%) for 181 meetings in 2017 (P < .001). The mean proportion of female speakers at medical specialty conferences was 9.8% higher (SE, 1.9%; P < .001) than the mean proportion of female speakers at surgical specialty conferences for all years analyzed. The mean proportion of female speakers at conferences was similar to the mean proportion of active female physicians across all specialties in the United States and in Canada for all years analyzed.
Although our findings indicate that the proportion of female speakers at medical conferences increased during the last decade, women continue to be underrepresented. Speaker invitation and selection at conferences represent important opportunities to influence gender equity within medicine.
性别平等是医学专业的一个突出问题。学术会议上女医生的代表性已被确定为性别平等的一个重要组成部分；然而，这个主题尚未得到系统评估。
确定过去十年中在加拿大和美国举行的主要学术医学会议上女性演讲者的比例趋势。
设计、设置和参与者：对 2007 年和 2013 年至 2017 年期间在加拿大和美国举行的医学会议的会议计划中列出的演讲者的性别进行了横断面分析。使用敏感的搜索策略确定了合格的会议，使用先前验证的工具分析了每个会议的演讲者名单，并分配了女性演讲者的比例。会议以英语举行，在加拿大或美国举办，目标是有 100 名或更多与会者的医生，并包括比较组是加拿大和美国的在职医生。
每年会议上女性演讲者比例的平均值。
共分析了 181 次会议，共 701 次会议，包括 100 次医学和 81 次外科专业会议。女性比例在所有演讲者中从 0%到 82.6%不等。分析的所有会议中，女性会议演讲者的平均（SD）比例从 2007 年 40 次会议的 24.6%（14.6%）显著增加到 2017 年 181 次会议的 34.1%（15.1%）（P < .001）。在分析的所有年份中，医学专业会议女性演讲者的平均比例比外科专业会议女性演讲者的平均比例高出 9.8%（SE，1.9%；P < .001）。在分析的所有年份中，会议上女性演讲者的平均比例与美国和加拿大所有专业领域在职女性医生的平均比例相似。
尽管我们的研究结果表明，过去十年中医学会议上女性演讲者的比例有所增加，但女性的代表性仍然不足。会议上的演讲邀请和选择代表了在医学领域影响性别平等的重要机会。
