Gender distribution among surgical journals’ editorial boards: Empowering women surgeon scientists

Abstract

I read with great interest the recent article titled “Gender Distribution Among Surgical Journals’ Editorial Boards: Empowering Women Surgeon Scientists” published in Surgery by Ehrlich et al. 1 Ehrlich H. Nguyen J. Sutherland M. et al. Gender distribution among surgical journals’ editorial boards: Empowering women surgeon scientists. Surgery. Online ahead of print. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.surg.2020.12.026Date accessed: March 23, 2021 Google Scholar This study reported the gender distribution of editorial board members of 42 US surgical journals. Only 420 (14.8%) of the 2,836 editorial board members were women, highlighting the gender disparity in surgical academia. I would like to congratulate the authors for raising the topic of gender disparity within surgical academia. Highlighting this is important so that the contributory and perpetuating factors can be subsequently identified and addressed. Gender distribution among surgical journals’ editorial boards: Empowering women surgeon scientistsSurgeryVol. 169Issue 6PreviewGender disparities still exist in the field of academic surgery. Women face additional obstacles obtaining high-ranking, surgical academia positions compared to men, and this may extend to the appointment of editorial board members. We aim to evaluate the gender distribution of editorial board members, associate editors, and editors-in-chief of top US surgical journals and to recommend interventions, which can promote equitable gender representation among editorial boards. Full-Text PDF Gender distribution among surgical journals’ editorial boards: maintaining momentum of equitySurgeryVol. 170Issue 1PreviewWe would like to thank the authors for their inquisitive ardor regarding our recent manuscript entitled “Gender distribution among surgical journals’ editorial boards: Empowering women surgeon scientists”.1 This cross-sectional analysis evaluated the recent state of gender distribution among the top United States surgical journals’ editorial boards. From this, it was discovered that out of the 42 journals included in our study, the mean proportions of female editorial board members, associate editors and editors in chief were all below 20%. Full-Text PDF