Gender representation among speaking and leader roles at European Cardio-thoracic surgical annual meetings

Objective: To evaluate gender representation among session leaders and abstract presenters at European Cardio-thoracic surgical annual meetings. Methods: This is a descriptive study of the gender distribution among session leaders and abstract presenters at 2 European Cardio-thoracic international meetings from 2017 to 2022. Data from publicly available programs were used to generate a list of session leaders and abstract presenters. The primary outcome was to evaluate the proportion of female sessions leaders at annual meetings. Descriptive analyses were performed including Cochran-Armitage trend test for linear trend of proportions. Results: A total of 1025 sessions of 11 annual meetings of the EACTS and ESTS were examined. 397 (13,2%) out of 3007 total session leaders and 955 (15,2%) out of 6251 abstract presenters were female. From 2017 to 2022 the proportions of both female session leaders and abstract presenters trended significantly (10,4% to 21,9% (p < 0.001) and 13,7% to 18.3% (p < 0.001), respectively). EACTS female members and female meeting attendance significantly increase from 2017 to 2022 (11,1% to 15,9% (p < 0.001), and 23,7% to 26,9% (p < 0.001), respectively. Most of women attendees at EACTS and ESTS meetings as session leaders and speakers came from Germany, Italy, UK and USA. Conclusions: Women are underrepresented compared to men in leadership and speaking roles at European Cardiothoracic surgical annual meetings. In the last years an encouraging positive trend over time for female leadership roles has been shown and as a result the proportion of female society members is represented at the annual meetings. Related to the genders of attendees at the meetings, there is still a substantial gender gap in leading roles.