Academic advancement depends on leadership at academic conferences. Although it has been shown in other subspecialties that women are underrepresented at academic surgical conferences, paediatric surgery has not been thoroughly investigated. This retrospective descriptive analysis, which covered the years 2003 to 2022, examined conference attendance at two national paediatric surgery annual conference programmes. Sex data from the moderator, speakers, and research presenters was gathered. The percentage of female participants in each of these roles was the main result. A trend test was run to determine its relevance. A total of 523 sessions from 29 meetings were looked at. From 2003 to 2022, there was an overall rise in the percentage of women in all roles. There were statistically significant increases in the number of women in speaking and moderating roles, with the moderator role showing the biggest percentage increase. Females have increased seven times over time. Additionally, there was a noticeable upward trend in the proportion of women who presented research. Over the past 20 years, gender representation in paediatric surgical conferences has improved. At academic conferences for paediatric surgery, efforts to continue granting women equal opportunity should be made since they currently account for around half of all participatory roles.
KeywordsGender disparity; Women in surgery; Women in academic medicine
Published Date: 2023-04-28; Received Date: 2023-04-03
