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Academic musculoskeletal radiology: influences for gender disparity

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Skeletal Radiology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Introduction

Research productivity is one of the few quintessential gauges that North American academic radiology departments implement to determine career progression. The rationale of this study is to quantify the relationship of gender, research productivity, and academic advancements in the musculoskeletal (MSK) radiology to account for emerging trends in workforce diversity.

Methods

Radiology residency programs enlisted in the Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database (FREIDA), Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS) and International Skeletal Society (ISS) were searched for academic faculty to generate the database for gender and academic profiles of MSK radiologists. Bibliometric data was collected using Elsevier’s SCOPUS archives, and analyzed using Stata version 14.2.

Results

Among 274 MSK radiologists in North America, 190 (69.34%) were men and 84 (30.66%) were women, indicating a statistically significant difference (χ2 = 6.34; p value = 0.042). The available number of female assistant professors (n = 50) was more than half of the male assistant professors (n = 88), this ratio however, plummeted at higher academic ranks, with only one-fourth of women (n = 11) professors compared to men (n = 45). The male MSK radiologist had 1.31 times the odds of having a higher h-index, keeping all other variables constant.

Conclusions

The trend of gender disparity exists in MSK radiology with significant underrepresentation of women in top tiers of academic hierarchy. Even with comparable h-indices, at the lower academic ranks, a lesser number of women are promoted relative to their male colleagues. Further studies are needed to investigate the degree of influence research productivity has, in determining academic advancement of MSK radiologists.

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Funding

There was no commercial funding for this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

    Sadia R. Qamar, Sabeena Jalal, Peter L. Munk, Savvas Nicolaou & Faisal Khosa

  2. Department of Radiology, Vancouver General Hospital, 899 12th Avenue W, Vancouver, BC, V5Z 1M9, Canada

    Kiran Khurshid

  3. University of Florida College of Medicine, Orlando, FL, USA

    Laura Bancroft

Authors
  1. Sadia R. Qamar
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  2. Kiran Khurshid
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  3. Sabeena Jalal
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  4. Laura Bancroft
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  5. Peter L. Munk
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  6. Savvas Nicolaou
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  7. Faisal Khosa
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Correspondence to Sadia R. Qamar.

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Qamar, S.R., Khurshid, K., Jalal, S. et al. Academic musculoskeletal radiology: influences for gender disparity. Skeletal Radiol 47, 381–387 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00256-017-2836-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00256-017-2836-x

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