Surgery

Biography

Biography: Frank Battaglia

Abstract

Background

Across many industries, the varying disparities between genders in who is hired or promoted have been well identified. When appraising the field of academic general surgery, it is important to see if there is an overall gender inequity in those entering the field, as well as if there is an underrepresentation of gender at ascending academic or leadership ranking. Furthermore, it is important to elucidate the factors that could be leading to this inequality.

Study Design

Data was collected from general surgical departments offering residency training in USA and Canada. The information gathered about faculty members included gender, quantification of bibliometrics, and academic achievement. Frequency and percentages were noted for the qualitative variables; median and ranges were reported for the quantitative variables. The chi-square test (χ2) was used to determine any association between gender and academic ranking, as well as gender with leadership ranking.

Results

There were a significantly higher number of men [3094 (79.39%)] among the academic faculty in the specialty of general surgery in North America, compared to women [803 (20.61%)] (χ2=55.046; p-value≤0.001). This trend was also seen in leadership roles, where there were significantly more men [463 (84.03%)] than women [88 (15.97%)] (χ2=8.35; p-value=0.004). When the h-index was adjusted by the years of research conducted by the faculty members of general surgery (m-index), we found that women outperform men in academic productivity at every level of academic appointment.

Conclusions

Women make up the minority of senior surgical faculty and leadership in the U.S. and Canada, despite the fact they are more academically productive for every year for which they are involved in research compared to men. This suggests that institutions are not considering research productivity equally to inform promotion, or whether academic productivity is considered secondary to other factors.