Gender and early career faculty disparities in hematology and medical oncology board review lectures series.

Abstract

11060 Background: Studies show that women and early career faculty members have less access to career development opportunities and leadership positions. These disparities slow the process of change and may affect leadership roles, promotions, and career advancements in academic medicine. Here, we provide the first analysis of speakers’ gender and early faculty disparities in hematology and medical oncology board review series. Methods: We performed a cross-sectional analysis of speakers at all major hematology and/or oncology board review series meetings, which were held in the United States between January 2017 and December 2021. Six major board review series were involved: Baylor/M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the Brigham and Dana-Farber, George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, and the American Society of Hematology. Details of the lectures were acquired via accessing brochures available on the institutions’ official websites. Data on board certification and maintenance of certificate (MOC) were obtained from the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) website. We extracted the number of publications from the PubMed website (MEDLINE). Results: Our analysis included 1224 board review lectures presented by 386 speakers. Of which, 315 (81.6%) were American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) certified, and MOC was active in 56.1% of speakers. Females accounted for 37.7% of all speakers, with a representation of less than 50% in 5 out of 6 board review series. The least proportion of female participation was among lectures discussing malignant hematology topics (24.8%), followed by solid tumors (38.9%), and benign hematology topics (44.1%). Faculty members with more than 15 years of experience since initial certification presented more than half of the lectures. The median time from initial hematology or medical oncology certification to lecture presentation was 12.5 years and 14 years, respectively, which varied significantly among different series (p < 0.001). Speakers’ median number of publications was 84. We also investigated how frequently the same speaker gave lectures. Thirteen male speakers conducted more than or equal to 10 lectures across all board review series, compared to only two female speakers who did the same. An upward trend of improvement in females participation was found at all board review conference meetings across the years. Conclusions: Our data suggest that women and early career faculty members are underrepresented in hematology and oncology board review series. Therefore, efforts should be made to ensure equal participation of them in such important activities needed to advance academic careers.