S. E. Sasor1, J. A. Cook1, S. P. Duquette1, T. A. Evans1, S. S. Tholpady1, M. W. Chu1, L. G. Koniaris1 1Indiana University,Plastic Surgery,Indianapolis, IN, USA
Purpose:
The number of women in medicine has grown rapidly in recent years. Women constitute over 50% of medical school graduates and hold 38% of faculty positions at U.S. medical schools. Despite this, gender disparities remain prevalent in most surgical subspecialties, including plastic surgery. The purpose of this study is to analyze female authorship trends to identify factors that affect scholarly output and professional advancement in academic plastic surgery.
Methods:
A cross-sectional study of all academic plastic surgeons was performed. Data was collected on gender, degrees, titles, and affiliation residency programs from department websites and online resources. National Institute of Health (NIH) funding was determined using the Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools database. Number of published manuscripts, citations, and h-index were obtained from Scopus (Elsevier Inc., New York, NY). Statistical analysis was performed in SPSS.
Results:
A total of 814 plastic surgeons were identified from 91 training programs in the US. Mean years in practice was 15.3 and the majority were male (83.2%). Average number of published manuscripts, citations, and h-index were 45.5, 974.9, and 11.6, respectively.
Compared to male surgeons, female surgeons had significantly fewer years in practice (9.9 vs. 16.4, p<0.001), held lower academic ranks (57.3% vs. 33.9% assistant professor, p<0.001 compared to 6.6% vs. 29.0% full professor, p<0.001), and published less (20.0 vs. 50.2 manuscripts, p<0.001, and 7.3 vs 12.6 h-index, p<0.001). Females with titles of assistant or associate professor had significantly fewer years in practice than males with the same title (6.1 vs. 9.0 years, p<0.001 assistant and 13.5 vs. 15.8 years p=0.01 associate). The trend continued for full professors but was not significant. Males published more manuscripts, had more citations and higher h-indexes than female surgeons at each academic rank but the findings were not statistically significant beyond the level of assistant professor.
Seven of 136 female surgeons (5.1%) and 46 of 678 male surgeons (6.9%) received an NIH grant during their career (p=0.57). Mean number of awards and total amount of funding was 10.3/$2,996,734 for women and 8.0/$1,853,345 for men (p=0.469 and p=0.57, respectively). NIH-funded surgeons of both sexes published more than non-funded surgeons (119.5 vs. 40.3 publications, p<0.001 and 24.7 vs. 10.7 h-index, p<0.001). There was no gender difference in scholarly output amongst NIH-funded surgeons.
Conclusion:
Research productivity is a metric for promotion in academic medicine. This study identifies significant gender disparities in scholarly productivity amongst plastic surgeons in academia. Differences are most apparent at junior ranks, suggesting that women who remain in academic medicine may later overcome publishing barriers faced earlier in their careers.