W e read with great interest the article by Landford et al. entitled, "Gender and Ethnic Diversity in Plastic Surgery: Temporal Trends among Speakers at National and Regional Plastic Surgery Conferences." 1 We appreciate the authors' willingness to examine the landscape of the podium. The long-standing gender and racial disparities within medicine are not new. 2 As a specialty, plastic surgery is not immune to these inequities and how they persist at research conferences and in higher leadership roles. [2][3][4] The authors noted an overall increase in female first authorship at the regional and national meeting levels. This increase was not reflected in racial or ethnic categories, where representation remained low within specific populations. The authors categorized race as "African descent," "European descent," "East Asian," "South Asian," "American Indian/Alaska Native," "Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander-Samoan," "Latinx/ Brazilian," and "Middle Eastern/North African." 1 While the authors mention the limitation of their work in basing ethnicity on physical perception and name, this cannot be overstated. Determining people's gender and ethnic background from available public photographs and names is at best inadequate and at worst harmful. Profiling, whether well intentioned or not, leads to missed data, misleading conclusions, and systemic problems with damaging outcomes. This methodology is not unique to the article by Landford et al. A recent study published through Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Global Open similarly used speaker surnames, online images, and pronouns to determine speaker race and gender. 5 These authors did use two evaluators, and even a third if a discrepancy was noted. In addition, they attempted to confirm race or ethnicity through additional online information. They similarly commented on the limitation of their methodology, but stated its feasibility and usage in numerous prior studies. 5 To explore these issues in a sensitive and more accurate fashion, we propose direct communication with those being analyzed in any study on diversity. For studies of this nature, it is prudent to survey all conference participants upon abstract acceptance and all podium presenters upon confirmation of conference attendance, in lieu of LinkedIn, social media, and Google searches. In this way, demographic data and the conclusions based on it would be more valuable and reliable. We recommend collecting this demographic information as a routine part of the conference application, so it is available for future research.As a specialty, we should continue to strive for diversity in all forms within the workplace to better care for our increasingly diverse patient population. Within medical education, those in leadership positions should be aware of disparities that exist and foster environments where mentorship creates a path for academic visibility and productivity. Furthermore, we must expect the same level of excellence in study design and execution around the topic of diversity that we insist will c...