Women were as productive as men in academic interventional radiology (IR) from 2006 to 2017, according to new research published in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology. The authors also found no signs of collaborative or citation discrimination against women, showing that the academic IR community is “inclusive of its female constituents.”
“The underrepresentation of women in the field of academic IR has been a growing concern, and other studies have demonstrated the need for more women in academic positions and mentorship roles,” wrote Nicholas Xiao, MD, department of radiology at Northwestern University in Chicago, and colleagues. “Furthermore, previous articles have expressed unease at the increasing potential of gender-based neglect due to both the prominent gender gap and the scarcity of women in leadership positions.”
The study included more than 4,800 original articles from the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology and CardioVascular and Interventional Radiology. All articles were published between 2006 and 2017.
Overall, 84 percent of first authors and 91.4 percent of senior authors were male. The number of articles published by women increased gradually—0.3 percent or 0.4 percent—each year. The number of women who received citations and grants also increased each year.
“This bibliometric analysis reveals that women are greatly outnumbered by men in authorship of IR original research,” the authors wrote. “This disparity in authorship is further pronounced among senior authors. Despite this, the data presented herein show that women are represented proportionally as authors in the academic literature—7.3 percent of IR faculty were women, and 12 presented of articles in this study were written by either a first (16 percent) or senior (9 percent) female author.”
Reviewing their findings, Xiao and colleagues concluded that they see a lot of “encouraging trends for the future of women in IR.”
Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.