Highlights
- •Female representation in surgical disciplines, including General Surgery, lags behind that in non-surgical disciplines despite females constituting the majority of Canadian medical students. Trends in applicants to General Surgery residency programs in Canada have not been recently evaluated.
- •Over the last two decades, the gender gap in applicants has normalized with females representing the majority of successfully matched candidates to General Surgery. However, a significant gap exists in practicing General Surgeons, indicating the need for further intervention to ensure equitable representation.
Summary
Background
Surgical disciplines lag behind non-surgical disciplines in attracting female trainees.
Female representation of Canadian General Surgeons has not been evaluated in recent
years in the literature. The objectives of this study were to assess gender trends
in applicants to Canadian General Surgery residency programs and practicing general
surgeons and subspecialists.
Methods
This retrospective cross-sectional study analyzed gender data for residency applicants
ranking General Surgery as their first-choice discipline from publicly-available annual
Canadian Residency Matching Service (CaRMS) R-1 match reports from 1998-2021. Aggregate
gender data for practicing female physicians in General Surgery and related subspecialties,
including Pediatric Surgery, obtained from annual Canadian Medical Association (CMA)
census from 2000-2019 was also analysed.
Results
There was a significant increase in the proportion of female applicants from 34% in
1998 to 67% in 2021 (p<0.001) and of successfully matched candidates from 39% to 68% (p= 0.002) from 1998 to 2021. Success rates between male and female candidates were
significantly different in 1998 (p<0.001), but not in 2021 (p=0.29). The proportion
of practicing female General Surgeons also significantly increased from 10.1% in 2000
to 27.9% in 2019 (p=0.0013), with variable trends in subspecialties.
Conclusion
Gender inequality in General Surgery residency matches has normalized since 1998.
Despite females representing more than 40% of applicants and successfully matched
candidates to General Surgery since 2008, a gender gap still exists amongst practicing
General Surgeons and subspecialists. This suggests the need for further cultural and
systemic change to mitigate gender disparities.
LEVEL OF EVIDENCE
Level III (Retrospective cross-sectional study);
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
January 10,
2023
Received:
January 10,
2023
Publication stage
In Press Accepted ManuscriptIdentification
Copyright
© 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
