Women Representation in Academic Vascular Surgery: Leadership, Education, and Research

Abstract

There has been an increase in the proportion of registered women vascular surgeons in the past 5 years. It is unclear whether these changes have been reflected within leadership positions within vascular surgery. The purpose of our study was to quantify and highlight women representation within academic vascular surgery, specifically among editorial boards, the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS), and in training program directors. Data on program directors and department or division leadership was determined by visiting the individual websites of all active vascular surgery residencies (n = 63) and fellowships (n = 116). Data on committee involvement was obtained from the SVS website (https://vascular.org/about/councils-and-committees). Demographics on editorial boards was determined from the top three vascular surgery-specific journals with the highest impact factors: Journal of Vascular Surgery, Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, and Annals of Vascular Surgery. Gender was assumed from the use of pronouns in surgeon biographies. The proportion of women vascular surgeons in the above leadership positions was compared with the demographics of the 2019 active physician's data available through the Association of American Medical Colleges using χ2 tests. Our analysis revealed significant disparities between men and women in vascular surgery leadership. Among active vascular surgeons, women account for 14.6% (575/3941) of the total workforce. Among the three highest impact vascular surgery journals, women comprised only 8.6% (25/291) of the editorial board, which was significantly lower than the proportion of active women vascular surgeons (P = .006). In contrast, 45.16% (14/31) of the SVS committee leadership positions were held by women (14/31), which was significantly higher than the proportion of active women surgeons (P < .001). Within vascular surgery training programs, women account for 14.52% (9/62 positions) of program directors in the integrated residency programs and 12.07% (14/116 positions) of program directors in fellowship programs (P = 1.0 and P = .487, respectively). Among division chiefs in the same academic institutions, women comprised only 4.81% (5/104 positions; P = .007) (Fig). Our results suggest that women are well-represented among SVS committee leadership but underrepresented among journal editorial boards and division leadership. Of note, our analysis may over-represent women in leadership as some individuals held multiple positions both within their institution and nationally. Leadership positions should evolve with the changing demographics of vascular surgeons, and additional research is needed to understand attitudes and barriers to a more balanced representation. In addition, gender was assumed based off pronoun usage, and self-reported data is needed to capture gender identity more accurately.