Endocrine surgery is at the forefront of gender diversity

Background: The purpose of this study is to assess gender diversity across surgical subspecialties, with a focus on endocrine surgery.

Methods: We collected publicly-reported data from Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and American Association of Endocrine Surgeons (AAES) during the 2017 data period. Student's t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to compare percentages of female surgeons. We analyzed data by geographical regions, excluding states where data was unreported/unavailable.

Results: During this period, there were 25,022 general surgeons. Of these, 5157 (20.6%) were female. There were 513 endocrine surgeons, of which 179 (34.8%) were female (p < 0.001). Across the US, endocrine surgery had the greatest percentage of female surgeons (34.8%) compared to other surgical subspecialties (p < 0.001). When comparing geographical regions, the Northeast (22.8%) and West (22.8%) contained the highest percentages of female general surgeons, while the South comprised the greatest proportion of female endocrine surgeons (38.7%).

Conclusions: Endocrine surgery has the most gender diversity of all studied surgical subspecialties. The Southern US has the greatest proportion of female endocrine surgeons.