The long-standing underrepresentation of women among medical academic leaders (deans, chairs, and professors) is well documented. However, little is known about trends in medical society leadership. Because tenure in society leadership positions contributes to academic advancement and provides opportunities to influence both the organization and the medical specialty, it is crucial to begin examining the demographics of society leadership.Methods | In this cross-sectional study, we identified 1 major physician-focused medical society for each of the 43 spe-cialty groupings listed in the 2016 Physician Specialty Data Report (Table ). 1 We generally selected the largest and/or most influential society in the field. Groupings for internal medicine/ pediatrics, neonatal-perinatal medicine, pediatric cardiology, and pediatric hematology/oncology (4 of 43 groupings) were then excluded because physicians in these specialties generally belong to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The primary outcome measures were years of presidential leadership attributed to men and women. To minimize some lack of independence across years, which is even greater for societies using 2-year presidential terms (4 of 39 societies; Table ), data were collected for a 10-year period (2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017), allowing for a minimum of 5 election cycles. For 38 societies, presidents' names were assigned to the year of election. For the AAP, which changed the start of its presidential term from fall to January in 2014, presidents elected before 2014 were assigned to the year following election. Gender was determined and verified via publicly available online profiles. Onesample tests of proportions comparing the percentage of women among association presidents with the percentage of women in active practice (Figure ) were used to determine the significance (2-sided P values) of underrepresentation or overrepresentation.

Purpose: Women physicians do not advance in academic promotion or leadership at the same rate as their male counterparts. One factor contributing to academic promotion and advancement is the experience of serving in elected leadership positions. Although >400 women are running for political office in 2018, fewer than a handful are physicians and there has never been a woman physician elected to the Congress. Yet, little is known about women physicians who run for elected positions within their institutions, medical/professional societies, or government. This study sought to examine how women physicians experience elections using a cross-sectional survey of women physicians to gain insight into patterns of reported experiences and perceived barriers to elected leadership positions. Methods: A cross-sectional survey study of 1221 women physicians. Results: 43.8% (N=535) of women physicians ran for an elected office from high school through medical school graduation, in contrast to only 16.7% (N=204) after graduating from medical school. Only 8.5% of women physicians surveyed reported a boss or supervisor encouraged them to run for an elected position. Conclusion: Women physicians are less likely to run for elected positions and for those with previous election experience, the most common barriers cited were lack of institutional time and support, experience, and mentorship.

Although maternal morbidity and mortality in the US is among the worst of developed countries, pregnant women have been under-represented in research studies, resulting in deficiencies in evidence-based guidance for treatment. There are over two billion smartphone users worldwide, enabling researchers to easily and cheaply conduct extremely large-scale research studies through smartphone apps, especially among pregnant women in whom app use is exceptionally high, predominantly as an information conduit. We developed the first pregnancy research app that is embedded within an existing, popular pregnancy app for self-management and education of expectant mothers. Through the large-scale and simplified collection of survey and sensor generated data via the app, we aim to improve our understanding of factors that promote a healthy pregnancy for both the mother and developing fetus. From the launch of this cohort study on 16 March 2017 through 17 December 2017, we have enrolled 2058 pregnant women from all 50 states. Our study population is diverse geographically and demographically, and fairly representative of US population averages. We have collected 14,045 individual surveys and 107,102 total daily measurements of sleep, activity, blood pressure, and heart rate during this time. On average, women stayed engaged in the study for 59 days and 45 percent who reached their due date filled out the final outcome survey. During the first 9 months, we demonstrated the potential for a smartphone-based research platform to capture an ever-expanding array of longitudinal, objective, and subjective participant-generated data from a continuously growing and diverse population of pregnant women.

Short Title: Pregnancy ResearchKit App 2 Background. Although maternal morbidity and mortality in the United States is among the worst of developed countries, pregnant women have been under-represented in research studies, resulting in deficiencies in evidence-based guidance for treatment. There are over two billion smartphone users worldwide, enabling researchers to easily and cheaply conduct extremely large-scale research studies through smartphone apps, especially among pregnant women in whom app use is exceptionally high, predominantly as an information conduit Objective: We aim to improve our understanding of factors that promote a healthy pregnancy for both the mother and developing fetus through the large-scale and simplified collection of participant-generated data.Study Design. We developed the first pregnancy research app that is embedded within an existing, popular pregnancy app for self-management and education of expectant mothers. Our research app is used to collect a combination of survey and sensor generated data from pregnant women living in the U.S. Results. From the study's launch onMarch 16, 2017 through December 17, 2017, we have enrolled 2,058 participants from all 50 states. Our study population is diverse geographically and demographically, and fairly representative of U.S. population averages. We have collected 14,045 individual surveys and 11,669 days of sleep, activity, blood pressure and heart rate measurements during this time. On average, women stayed engaged in the study for 64 days and 48 percent who reached their due date filled out the final outcome survey. Conclusion. During the first nine months of the deployment of this unique program of ongoing research in pregnancy, we demonstrated the potential for a smartphone-based research platform to capture an ever-expanding array of longitudinal, objective and subjective participantgenerated data from a continuously growing and diverse population of pregnant women. Clinical Trials Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03085875

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