Abstract
Purpose :
To examine the academic background, scholarly activity, and demographic characteristics of pediatric ophthalmology program directors (PDs) through cross-sectional analysis.
Methods :
All pediatric ophthalmology PDs of fellowship programs that participated in the San Francisco Match in January 2020 were included. Information was collected through online search of publicly available sources from July 7th, 2021 to July 23rd, 2021. Scholarly activity was measured by the number of peer-reviewed articles published as well as the Hirsch index.
Results :
Of the 43 pediatric ophthalmology fellowship programs reviewed, 22 (51%) had a male PD, and 21 (49%) had a female PD. The mean age of current PDs was 53.5 ± 8.8 years old. The average age at time of appointment was 39.2 ± 7.7 years old. There was a significant difference between the current age of female PDs (49 ± 7.3) and male PDs (57.8 ± 8; P <0.0001).
Thirty-eight (88%) PDs attended medical school in the United States. Forty-two have an MD (98%) and one (2%) has an MBBCh. Thirty-nine (91%) PDs completed ophthalmology residency in the U.S. Forty-two (98%) completed a fellowship in pediatric ophthalmology in the U.S. Ten (23%) of the PDs were dual fellowship trained.
The average number of peer-reviewed publications published by each pediatric ophthalmology PD was 62 ± 77.4 (median 31, range 3-299). There was a statistically significantly higher Hirsch-index among male PDs (23.9 ± 15.7) than female PDs (10.3 ± 10.1; P = 0.0017). There also was a higher number of peer-reviewed publications for male PDs (91 ± 89) than female PDs (31.5 ± 48.6; P = 0.0099).
Conclusions :
Pediatric ophthalmology fellowship programs have equal representation of male and female program directors. This is unique to this subspecialty as women continue to be underrepresented in ophthalmology. The reasons for higher scholarly output of male versus female PDs is unclear, and further research will be helpful to address this disparity.
This abstract was presented at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 1-4, 2022, and virtually.