Despite increasing gender parity in the pipeline involving both medical school matriculants
and surgical training programs, the so-called ‘glass ceiling’ of academic advancement
and leadership persists for women surgeons across specialties, practice types, and
geography.
1
,
2
,
3
,
4
A key aspect of academic promotion involves publication track record and its associated
impact as a measure of national or international reputation. In “The Evolving Gender
Distribution in Authorship Over Time in American Surgery,” Tran et al. explored the
gender of first and senior authors within five American surgical journals over three
eras: 1997, 2007, and 2017.
5
Importantly, this evaluation demonstrated that there has been a substantial increase
in the proportion of women authors from approximately 15% in 1997 to over 52% in 2017
for both first and corresponding authorship (p < 0.001). However, a large discrepancy
in female authorship was observed within the subset of basic science publications,
with only 17.4% of first authors and 8.8% of senior authors being women (P < 0.001).
This manuscript is unique in that it evaluated a broad range of specialties and journals
over a 20-year period and highlights that the gender publication gap is improving
but remains a persistent issue in surgery, particularly among basic science investigators.To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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References
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Nguyen Q, Luc JGY, Lawton JS, et al. Gender Representation Among Principal Investigators in Cardiac Surgery Clinical Trials in the United States: The Glass Ceiling and Room for Improvement. Ann Surg. Published online June 2021. doi:10.1097/SLA.0000000000004961.
- Is the glass-ceiling higher than we think? Sex disparity trends in physician executive positions and academic plastic surgery.Ann Plast Surg. 2020; 85: S127-S128https://doi.org/10.1097/SAP.0000000000002321
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Tran TB, Wong P, Raoof M, Melstrom K, Fong Y, Melstrom LG. The evolving gender distribution in authorship over time in American surgery. Am J Surg. Published online May 2022. doi:10.1016/j.amjsurg.2022.05.029.
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ICJME. Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors.
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: June 23, 2022
Accepted:
June 15,
2022
Received:
June 13,
2022
Identification
Copyright
© 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
