Ekpunobi Ifeanyi, Farquharson Donnae, McClelland Shearwood
Department of Radiation Oncology, University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH, United States.
Department of Neurological Surgery, University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH, United States.
Rep Pract Oncol Radiother. 2024 Mar 18;29(1):51-54. doi: 10.5603/rpor.99359. eCollection 2024.
Invitations for grand rounds are typically used to evaluate faculty promotion in Radiation Oncology. To shed light on potential barriers to career progression, we conducted a study examining the racial and gender demographics of invited speakers and the inclusion of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)-related talks among African-American radiation oncology speakers.
Radiation oncology programs in the US were contacted to obtain a list of speakers invited to their institution along with their topics presented between January 2021 and December 2022. Speakers were categorized demographically by race and gender; speaker demographics were determined by facial recognition and internet investigation. Non-faculty were eliminated from analysis. Talk topics were categorized as either DEI or non-DEI from the speaker's talk title. The Fisher's exact test was used for statistical analysis, with significance set at p < 0.05.
A total of 252 invited speakers and their associated talk topics were obtained from 51 radiation oncology programs. Of these speakers, 98 were female (38.9%) and 16 were African-American race (6.3%). The invited talk topic was DEI-related in 7% of total cases. Among speakers not of African-American race, this was 4.2% (10/236); among African-American speakers, it was 50% (8/16). This difference reached statistical significance (p < 0.0001).
A significant proportion of invited African-American radiation oncology grand rounds/visiting professor talks are focused on the topic of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), compared with less than 5% of non-African-American invited speakers. Targeted efforts to expand African-American representation in non-DEI topics are needed to ensure and expand diversity in Radiation Oncology.
大查房邀请通常用于评估放射肿瘤学领域的教师晋升情况。为了揭示职业发展的潜在障碍，我们开展了一项研究，调查受邀演讲者的种族和性别构成，以及非裔美国放射肿瘤学演讲者中与多元化、公平和包容（DEI）相关的演讲情况。
联系了美国的放射肿瘤学项目，以获取2021年1月至2022年12月期间受邀到其机构演讲的人员名单及其演讲主题。根据种族和性别对演讲者进行人口统计学分类；通过面部识别和网络调查确定演讲者的人口统计学特征。分析中排除了非教师人员。根据演讲者的演讲标题，将演讲主题分为DEI相关或非DEI相关。采用Fisher精确检验进行统计分析，显著性水平设定为p < 0.05。
从51个放射肿瘤学项目中获得了总共252名受邀演讲者及其相关演讲主题。其中，女性演讲者98名（38.9%），非裔美国种族演讲者16名（6.3%）。受邀演讲主题与DEI相关的占总案例的7%。在非非裔美国种族的演讲者中，这一比例为4.2%（10/236）；在非裔美国演讲者中，这一比例为50%（8/16）。这种差异具有统计学意义（p < 0.0001）。
与不到5%的非非裔美国受邀演讲者相比，相当一部分受邀的非裔美国放射肿瘤学大查房/客座教授演讲聚焦于多元化、公平和包容（DEI）主题。需要有针对性地努力增加非裔美国在非DEI主题中的代表性，以确保并扩大放射肿瘤学领域的多样性。
