Login to Access Video or Poster Abstract: MP86-19
Sources of Funding: None

Introduction

The number of female urology residents in the United States has continued to rise over the past 10 years. The representation of this cohort in an academic meeting setting has not been fully defined. We reviewed abstracts from the Mid-Atlantic American Urological Association (MAAUA) sectional meetings to determine if this increase in female urology residents mirrored an increase in this group&[prime]s abstract authorship.

Methods

Full text abstracts from the MAAUA meetings were analyzed from 2008-2014 excluding one joint section meeting. The first author&[prime]s gender was ascertained from institutional websites, social media, and U.S. News and World Report. If still uncertain, then the gender was classified as &[Prime]unknown&[Prime] and such abstracts were not included in the analysis. The abstracts were categorized as pertaining to general urology, endourology, oncology, reconstruction/trauma, pediatrics, robotic/laparoscopic, female pelvic medicine, and education/other.

Results

A total of 484 abstracts were analyzed. Of these, 393 (81%) were first authored by men, 81 (17%) by women, and 10 (2%) having an unknown gender. The disparity between men and women authorship was significant at all years of evaluation (p < 0.0001) with a declining trend of female first authorship across the study years. (Figure 1) Subgroup analysis across urology specialties highlighted significantly greater male first author representation in all topic areas including female pelvic medicine. (Figure 2)

Conclusions

Despite an increasing number of female urology residents, representation at one AUA sectional meeting over the past 7 years remained disproportionately low. Additionally, analysis of trends revealed a slight decrease over the same time period. While this may be a function of smaller sample size, these data underscore the need for closer evaluation of the reasons underlying this trend.

Funding

None