McDonald Heather M, Cote Stephanie L, McMillan Austin, Sharan Sapna
Department of Ophthalmology, Ivey Eye Institute, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, Ontario, Canada.
Department of Ophthalmology, Keck School of Medicine, University of South California, California, USA.
Can Med Educ J. 2024 Dec 31;15(6):34-41. doi: 10.36834/cmej.77587. eCollection 2024 Dec.
Ophthalmology has historically been a male-dominated specialty. Despite there being a higher proportion of females in Canadian medical schools since the early 2000s, it is unknown if trends in female applicants and those accepted to ophthalmology have followed suit. This study aims to evaluate trends in gender representation of ophthalmology applicants to Canadian residency programs from 1998 to 2020 and to compare those trends to other surgical specialties.
We obtained aggregate data of the annual number of male and female applicants ranking and successfully matching to ophthalmology as their first-choice specialty from the Canadian Residency Matching Service (CaRMS) database. We then carried out a retrospective cross-sectional analysis on the publicly available data. Subsequently, we compared trends in female applicants to ophthalmology, as well as female practicing ophthalmologists, to other surgical disciplines.
The proportion of female applicants increased from 24.3% in 1998 to 33.3% in 2020 ( = 0.001), and matched female applicants increased from 28.6% in 1998 to 40.5% in 2020 ( = 0.023). However, the incremental change in proportion did not statistically significantly increase in 2008-2012, 2013-2016, and 2017-2020. Comparison of male and female matching success rates did not reveal a significant difference ( = 0.45). Trends in female applicants to ophthalmology and female practicing ophthalmologists were similar to other surgical specialties.
Although the proportion of female applicants is increasing, there is a recent plateau and an inability to equalize the female-to-male ratio in ophthalmology. Further studies are needed to identify potential barriers and mitigate possible residual gender biases.
眼科在历史上一直是男性主导的专科领域。自21世纪初以来，加拿大医学院校中的女性比例有所提高，但女性眼科申请者及被录取者的趋势是否也随之改变尚不清楚。本研究旨在评估1998年至2020年申请加拿大眼科住院医师项目的性别比例趋势，并将这些趋势与其他外科专科进行比较。
我们从加拿大住院医师匹配服务（CaRMS）数据库中获取了每年将眼科列为首选专科的男性和女性申请者排名及成功匹配的汇总数据。然后，我们对公开数据进行了回顾性横断面分析。随后，我们将眼科女性申请者以及女性眼科执业医师的趋势与其他外科专业进行了比较。
女性申请者比例从1998年的24.3%增至2020年的33.3%（ = 0.001），成功匹配的女性申请者从1998年的28.6%增至2020年的40.5%（ = 0.023）。然而，在2008 - 2012年、2013 - 2016年和2017 - 2020年，比例的增量变化在统计学上并无显著增加。男性和女性匹配成功率的比较未显示出显著差异（ = 0.45）。眼科女性申请者和女性眼科执业医师的趋势与其他外科专科相似。
尽管女性申请者比例在增加，但近期出现了平稳期，且眼科领域男女比例无法实现均衡。需要进一步研究以确定潜在障碍并减轻可能存在的残余性别偏见。
