Abstract
Purpose :
The number of women entering the field of ophthalmology has increased steadily over the past four decades; however, they remain underrepresented within the oculoplastic surgery subspecialty. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between sex and scholarly impact among academic oculoplastic surgeons.
Methods :
This cross-sectional study included data from 113 ACGME-accredited ophthalmology residency programs, collected from official institutional websites between January and March 2019. Full-time oculoplastic surgeons were identified, and gender was determined using gender pronouns, photographs, and academic biographies on faculty profiles. Scholarly impact was determined using the h-index and m-quotient from the Scopus database. Career duration was calculated by obtaining publicly available residency year graduation. American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (ASOPRS) membership was confirmed using the ASOPRS membership database accessible via their website. A Chi-square test was used to compare categorical values and a Wilcoxon Rank Sum test was used for continuous variables.
Results :
Of the 245 oculoplastic surgeons identified, 74 (30.2%) were women and 171 (69.8%) were men. Median h-indices of female surgeons was lower than that of men (4.0 vs 7.0; p = .009). There was no significant difference in median m-quotient (0.4 vs 0.4; p = 1.00). Females had a shorter career duration when compared to their male colleagues (10.0 v 21.0 years, p < .001). Of the 166 oculoplastic surgeons with ASOPRS membership, there were 47 (28.3%) females and 119 (71.7%) males. Female ASOPRS members had a higher median h-index (5.0 vs 2.0; p < .008) and m-quotient (0.6 vs 0.3; p = 0.04) than female non-ASOPRS surgeons. Male ASOPRS members had a higher median h-index (9.0 vs 3.0; p < .001) and m-quotient (0.6 vs 0.2; p < .001) than male non-ASOPRS surgeons. Male ASOPRS members had a higher median h-index (9.0 vs 5.0; p < .001), but an identical median m-quotient (0.6 vs 0.6; p = 1.00) as their female ASOPRS counterparts.
Conclusions :
Female oculoplastic surgeons had lower h-indices than male counterparts; however, no differences were seen in m-quotients. This suggests that the greater scholarly impact associated with male sex is related to longer academic career length. Same-sex ASOPRS oculoplastic faculty had significantly greater scholarly impact than non-ASOPRS faculty.
This is a 2020 ARVO Annual Meeting abstract.