1300 Gender Distribution of Invited Speakers at Major Cardiothoracic Surgery Conferences: A Retrospective Open Cohort Study

Aim Females are under-represented in surgery despite the representation of female surgeons at academic meetings being an important facet of gender equity. We aimed to investigate the percentage of female faculty included in all sessions and to quantify the prevalence of all-male speaking panels (“manels”) at major cardiothoracic surgery meetings. Method We retrospectively analysed annual meetings organised by four major cardiothoracic surgery associations/societies between January 2016 and December 2021. Data were collected on invited lecturers, panelists and chairs/moderators. Male and female faculty were academically stratified according to mean publications, citations, and H-index. A “manel” was defined as a session with 2 or more speakers, all of whom are men. Sex was defined by gender titles used in the conference program or the Gender Balance Assessment Tool (GBAT). Results A total of 1182 sessions (panels and invited lectures) with 4841 speakers across 23 conferences were identified from January 2016 to December 2021. The mean percentage of female faculty (invited lecturers, panelists and chairs) was 12.8% (n=618). Of 893 panel sessions, 570 (63.8%) were manels. No statistically significant difference in the percentage of manels was observed between online (59.0%) versus in-person conferences (65.2%) (p=0.118). No statistically significant difference in the percentage of manels was observed over time (from 60.4% in 2016 to 61.1% in 2021) (p=0.163). Male invited lecturers had a significantly higher H-index than female invited lecturers (p<0.05). Conclusions Manels are highly prevalent in major cardiothoracic surgery meetings whilst there is poor representation of female speakers. This may further worsen gender diversity in surgery.