MP66-09 TRENDS IN FEMALE REPRESENTATION AT HIGH-PROFILE UROLOGY CONFERENCES, 2014-2019

Abstract

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: As the induction of females in medicine reaches parity (51.6%), the proportion of women in urology remains disproportionately low (9.2%). Within academic urology, women hold a minority of leadership positions. One such position of esteem is that of an invited speaker at a major academic conference. We sought to measure female representation at these events and compare their involvement to the overall representation of women in academic urology. METHODS: A cross-sectional analysis was conducted to identify the gender of conference speakers listed in annual scientific programming at urology conferences from 2014 to 2019. Six high profile urology conferences were selected that encompass the many urological subspecialties: American Urologic Association (AUA); Society of Urodynamics, Female Pelvic Medicine and Urogenital Reconstruction; Society of Pediatric Urology; Society of Urologic Oncology; Genitourinary Reconstructive Surgery; World Congress of Endourology. Using published programming, the number of total and female speakers at each conference was recorded from 2014 to 2019, when available. Gender was decided based on traditional naming conventions and in cases of gender ambiguous naming, the specific individual was categorized via search engines. Trends were identified and comparisons were made to the proportion of female urologists practicing at academic centers based on 2018 AUA census data. RESULTS: A total of 29 conferences were reviewed. From 2014 to 2019, female representation increased from 8.8% to 21.4% (p < 0.001). The proportion of female speakers at all recorded conferences ranged from 0% to 40.1%. The average absolute increase was 1.9% each year. In 2018, the proportion of female academic urologist was 12.0%. When using this as a reference, female representation at urologic conferences in 2018 was significantly greater than female representation in academic urology as a whole (16.2% versus 12.0%, respectively) (p=0.014). CONCLUSIONS: Findings exhibit a trend with increasing proportion of female speakers at academic urology conferences from 2014 to 2019. When all 2018 conference speakers were assessed in aggregate, females were actually overrepresented as speakers. Although the proportion of women in academic urology remains low, the overall trend indicates that the proportion of female invited speakers has increased. Future selection of speakers should continue to consider gender disparities, especially at meetings with little to no female representation. Source of Funding: None