Factors Influencing Preferences for Plastic Surgery Conferences: A Conjoint Analysis

Abstract

Background: The increase in virtual conferences during the COVID-19 pandemic provided unexpected advantages such as increased accessibility, while also creating concern about the effectiveness of online networking and career development. Given that a variety of conference attributes are impacted by changes in conference format, we sought to investigate how plastic surgeons prioritize key aspects of conference conduct. Methods: We sent a survey based on conjoint analysis, a statistical method for evaluating consumer preferences, to active members of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Respondents were asked to choose between pairs of conference options, each with unique attributes. Their answers were used to calculate feature importance values and utility coefficients for the conference attributes. Subgroup analyses were conducted based on demographic factors. Results: A total of 263 respondents completed the survey. Respondents were mostly White (181 individuals [68.8%]) and men (186 [70.7%]). Nearly half (122 [46.4%]) had been practicing 20 or more years. Conference attributes with the highest feature importance values (SDs) were cost of attendance (30.4% [14.2%]) and conference format (28.8% [14.2%]). Equity initiatives (14.5% [10.1%]), reimbursement for cost (11.1% [5.7%]), and opportunities for networking (9.5% [6.0%]) had intermediate feature importance values. Environmental impact had the lowest feature importance (5.7% [3.8%]). Conclusions: Surgeons’ conference preferences depend highly on format and the presence of equity initiatives, both of which can be incorporated or modified in future conferences to ensure inclusive and successful events. Meanwhile, environmental impact is less important to surgeons, suggesting a pressing need to bring sustainability issues to their attention.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Plastic Surgery

“…A total of 138 publications were identified 3–140 Figure 1. demonstrates the number of publications appearing annually in the 6 journals from January 2018 to September 2023.…”

Peer Review

“…Recently, emphasis has been given to equity, diversity, and inclusion in plastic surgery. Equity initiatives “to promote visibility of both gender and racial minorities” are considered crucial to increase diversity 70 . If this perspective means decisions are made based on the skin color, race, national origin (for example, favoring international studies over domestic ones) 1 or the sex of the authors, then of course such discrimination is unacceptable.…”