Gender Differences in Publication Productivity Among Academic Urologists in the United States

Abstract

Objective To describe the publication productivity of academic urologists in the United States by gender. Materials and Methods Gender inequality is prevalent in most surgical subspecialties, including urology. Despite small numbers of women in academic positions, differences in scholarly impact by gender are relatively unknown. We assembled a list of 1922 academic urologists (1686 male (87.7%), 236 female (12.3%)) at 124 academic institutions throughout the United States as of February 2016. Scopus and Google Scholar were queried for bibliometric data on each individual, including h-index and m-quotient. We analyzed these metrics for both genders by educational background, subspecialty, NIH funding, and academic rank. Results Men had higher median h-indices than women overall (p<0.05), and by successive academic ranks (p<0.05). Proportionally fewer women attained senior academic ranking (professor/chair), (p<0.05). There was no difference in research productivity by successive rank after controlling for career duration (m-quotient). Women were more likely to choose a practice that specialized in pediatric urology or female urology/pelvic reconstructive surgery than their male counterparts (p<0.05). Conclusions and Relevance Women represent a growing proportion of academic urology faculty, but despite the recent increase in number entering the field, relatively few women occupy senior leadership positions. Improving psychosocial barriers to advancement such as lack of mentorship or discriminatory policies may help pioneering female urologists as they progress in their careers.

Academic Surgical Oncologists’ Productivity Correlates with Gender, Grant Funding, and Institutional NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center Affiliation

“…Our study aligns with previous reports demonstrating that male healthcare providers (i.e., general surgery, gynecologic oncology, radiation oncology, urology, otolaryngology, gastroenterology, anesthesiology, pediatrics, and psychology) and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) researchers (i.e., ecology, evolutionary biology, industrial engineering and molecular biology) have significantly higher h-indices than their female colleagues across professorial ranks (all p < 0.05), but is the first to analyze this gender disparity within academic surgical oncology. 10,20–28 The etiologies underlying all of these disparities are likely multifactorial. First, the number of citations an article receives has been shown to correlate with male gender of authors.…”

Trends in the training of female urology residents in Canada

“…A recent study looking at gender differences in publications by academic urologists in the USA also found that females were more likely to do a fellowship in Female pelvic medicine/Reconstructive surgery or Pediatric urology 17 . Oberlin and colleagues found that female urologists operated on many more female patients than did their male counterparts (54% vs 32% respectively), even when they were performing gender-neutral surgeries or had genderneutral fellowship training such as endourology 18 .…”

Practice patterns of female urologists in Australia and New Zealand

“…In the USA, a recent study reported 23% of women urologists participated in academia compared with a 2005 study that reported 62% of female fellowship‐trained urologists were in academic practice . Even among academic urologists, women have a lower scientific productivity and citation impact than men . It would seem that fewer US women urologists now have academic practices than a decade ago, and our data indicate even fewer women urologists in Australia and New Zealand do.…”