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Purpose: To evaluate the demographic, educational, and scholarly characteristics of Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology–accredited vitreoretinal surgery fellowship program directors in the United States and Canada. Methods: Demographic, educational, and scholarly profiles of identified program directors were collated from online public resources. Characteristics were compared by sex, program size, ranking, and affiliation. Results: Eighty-one program directors (mean age ±SD 54.7 ± 11.0 years) from 78 fellowship programs were identified. The minority were women (14.8%), who were on average 6 years younger than their male counterparts ( P = .07). The majority of program directors had an academic affiliation (90.1%), most commonly professor (54.8%). The mean h-index, 5-year h-index, and m-quotient were 20.9 ± 14.9, 5.9 ± 4.4, and 0.82 ± 0.42, respectively. Compared with their counterparts, program directors of both “top 10” and large programs published more manuscripts ( P < .05), accrued more citations ( P < .05), and had a higher h-index ( P < .05). Fellowship programs with female program directors had a significantly larger proportion of female retina faculty ( P = .002). Conclusions: The backgrounds of vitreoretinal surgery program directors are diverse. However, women remain underrepresented in this position, highlighting an area with the potential for greater equity in ophthalmology.
Jiao et al. (2024) studied this question.