title: Gender disparities in scholarly productivity of US academic surgeons.
abstract: Female surgeons have faced significant challenges to promotion over the past decades, with attrition rates supporting a lack of improvement in women's position in academia. We examine gender disparities in research productivity, as measured by the number of citations, publications, and h-indices, across six decades.
  
  
  
  The online profiles of full-time faculty members of surgery departments of three academic centers were reviewed. Faculty members were grouped into six cohorts by decade, based on year of graduation from medical school. Differences between men and women across cohorts as well as by academic rank were examined.
  
  
  
  The profiles of 978 surgeons (234 women and 744 men) were reviewed. The number of female faculty members in the institutions increased significantly over time, reaching the current percentage of 35.3%. Significant differences in number of articles published were noted at the assistant and full but not at the associate, professor level. Women at these ranks had fewer publications than men. Gender differences were also found in all age cohorts except among the most recent who graduated in the 2000s. The impact of publications, as measured by h-index and number of citations, was not consistently significantly different between the genders at any age or rank.
  
  
  
  We identified a consistent gender disparity in the number of publications for female faculty members across a 60-year span. Although the youngest cohort, those who graduated in the 2000s, appeared to avoid the gender divide, our data indicate that overall women still struggle with productivity in the academic arena.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Stanford University, Stanford, California. Electronic address: clmueller@stanfordchildrens.org.
authors.forename: Claudia M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Mueller
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Stanford University, Stanford, California.
authors.forename: Dyani K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Gaudilliere
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Stanford University, Stanford, California.
authors.forename: Cindy
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kin
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Stanford University, Stanford, California.
authors.forename: Roseanne
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Menorca
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Stanford University, Stanford, California.
authors.forename: Sabine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Girod
mesh_terms: D000046:Academic Medical Centers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002322:Career Mobility; D004526:Efficiency; D005180:Faculty, Medical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011643:Publishing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D063507:Sexism / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D066231:Surgeons / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States
keywords: Academic surgery; Cohort analysis; Gender differences; Publication rate