Women underrepresented in high-profile roles, late-breaker presentations at CV conferences
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The proportion of women speakers at CV conferences increased from 2015 to 2019, but their inclusion in late-breaking clinical science presentations and in roles defined as high profile remains low, researchers reported.
“The field of cardiovascular medicine, and especially its procedural subspecialties, rank among the lowest of all fields in medicine in terms of female representation,” Celina M. Yong, MD, MBA, MSc, assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and director of interventional cardiology at Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System in California, and colleagues wrote. “Lack of role models has been cited as a major reason, driving recent efforts to highlight female role models as speakers at major cardiology conferences. However, few studies have quantified and examined the impact of these efforts.”
For this analysis published in the Go Red for Women issue of Circulation, researchers gathered data on 80,680 speakers from annual CV conferences with attendance greater than 2,500. The conferences included those organized by the European Society of Cardiology, American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics, Heart Rhythm Society and the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE). Researchers evaluated self-reported gender data of physician faculty from 2015 to 2019, which were further broken down by speaker role.
Representation of women at CV conferences
Overall, the proportion of women speakers at annual CV conferences increased from 2015 to 2019, from approximately 16% to approximately 20% (P < .0001).
Researchers observed that invasive fields contained the lowest percentage of women speakers (5-year mean, 16% at HRS and 10% at TCT); however, the proportion of women speakers was greater than the proportion of board-certified women in their respective invasive fields (9% electrophysiologists; 7% interventionalists).
In 2019, the average number of talks given per woman was greater compared with the average number of talks per man at general cardiology and noninvasive conferences such as ESC, ACC and ASE (1.81 per woman vs. 1.74 per man), but not at TCT, an invasive specialty conference (1.52 per woman vs. 1.58 per man).
More men served in roles such as moderator, panelist, speaker and abstract or case presenter compared with women (P for all < .0001).
Moreover, 100% of high-profile interventional cardiology talks from 2017 to 2019 and 100% of the high-profile electrophysiology talks at ACC from 2015 to 2018 were given by men.
“We demonstrate a low but gradual increase in women physician speakers at major cardiovascular conferences over time,” the researchers wrote. “To achieve this, the same women are often being tasked with giving more presentations, albeit not more high-profile ones.”
High-profile presentations
According to the study, talks in noninvasive fields and general cardiology were more balanced, with women delivering 46% of high-profile CVD talks and 53% of high-profile HF talks over 5 years at ACC.
However, women were not so well represented as presenters of late-breaking clinical trials (6% at AHA in 2019 and 14% at ACC from 2016 to 2019), the researchers wrote.
“It’s a bit of a chicken and egg issue, where those who already have high profiles are sought after for high profile talks — and due to historical precedent, they currently happen to be men,” Yong told Healio. “In order to break this cycle, we have to start reaching outside traditional networks to vet potential talented female speakers so that we don’t propagate the persistent exclusion of women.
“It behooves us all to make sure that having a high profile does not become a prerequisite for becoming a high-profile speaker,” Yong said. “High-profile speaking opportunities are often viewed as criteria for career advancement, with impacts on leadership growth and funding opportunities — so there is a ripple effect for women in the field as a whole.”
For more information:
Celina M. Yong, MD, MBA, MSc, can be reached at cyong@stanford.edu.
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