Gender Representation Among Speaking and Leader Roles at European Cardiothoracic Surgical Annual Meetings

This study examined the gender distribution of session leaders and abstract presenters at two international European cardiothoracic meetings from 2017 to 2022. The primary outcome was to evaluate the proportion of female session leaders and abstract presenters. During this time, 397 out of 3,007 (13.2 percent) session leaders and 955 out of 6,251 abstract presenters were female. Over this period, the proportions of female session leaders and abstract presenters increased significantly. However, women are still underrepresented in these roles at these meetings. More efforts are required by cardiothoracic organizations to address the gender gap, and the authors suggest specific steps that could be taken to address this.