Females Are Less Likely Invited Speakers to the International Stroke Conference

Abstract

F emale physicians are becoming neurologists at an increas- ing rate. In fact, 44.7% of active neurology residents and fellows in accredited programs were female in 2017 compared with only 29.4% of practicing neurologists. Despite this trend, sex disparities are evident with increasing academic rank. For full-time faculty in neurology at all US medical schools, the proportions of female assistant professors, associate professors, and full professors were 47%, 38%, and 21%, respectively. This trend closely mirrors averaged numbers of all specialties when combined. 3 This disparity has been dubbed the leaky pipeline with decreasing percentages of females with increasing rank in academia. There is also a lower proportion of females in certain subspecialty fields. In 2017, only 31.3% of vascular neurology fellows were female. In 2015, only 6% of nursing school faculty were male, and only 8% of registered nurses were male. In 2013, physical therapy program directors were 41% male, whereas physical therapy students were only 34% male, suggesting an overrepresentation of males in physical therapy leadership. 9 Research accomplishments and national and international peer esteem support promotion in academia, therefore, opportunities to present at scientific conferences are important for career advancement. Several studies have published trends of sex differences among speakers at major scientific events and medical conferences across specialties. ] In just 2 years after publishing sex imbalance in its invited speakers, the American Society of Microbiology was able to achieve a nearly complete balance of featured presenters at its general meeting in 2015. ew studies have analyzed demographic variables of nonphysician speakers, such as physician assistants, registered nurses, and allied health professionals, at major scientific meetings. No published English language studies to date have analyzed these trends in speakers at major conferences in the field of neurology. Using data published by the American Heart Association, we sought to determine trends in the demographics of speakers by sex among those invited to speak at the International Stroke Conference (ISC) over a 5-year period (2014-2018). We hypothesize that significant sex differences exist for invited speakers at the ISC.