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Background There are a number of factors that may hinder women's surgical careers. Here, we focus on one possible factor: the representation of women at surgical conferences. Methods Using a purposive sample of 16 national surgical societies, we assessed the proportion of women speakers at each society's annual meeting in plenary speaker and session speaker (panelist and moderator) roles in 2011 and 2016. Results Overall, 23.8% (28,591/120,351) of all society members were women. Of the 129 plenary speakers, 19.4% (n = 25) were women. Twelve conferences (42.9%) had zero women as plenary speakers. Of the 5,161 session speakers, 1,120 (21.7%) were women. Three-hundred fifty-three (39.5%) of the 893 panels included only male speakers. The proportion of women on conference organizing committees was positively correlated with having women session speakers (r = 0.71, p= Conclusions There is underrepresentation of women as conference speakers, particularly in plenary roles. There was wide variability in the representation of women across conferences.

Background There are notable disparities in the training, recruitment, promotion, and evaluation of men and women in surgery. The qualitative assessment of surgical residents may be implicitly gender biased. Methods We used inductive analysis to identify themes in written evaluations of residents. We also performed a content analysis of words fitting previously defined communal, grindstone, ability, and standout categories. Results Differences in themes that emerged from evaluations of male and female residents were notable regarding overall performance, references to the future, professional competency, job domains, disposition and humanism, and overall tone of evaluations. Comments about men were more positive than those about women, and evaluations of men included more standout words. Conclusions The more positive evaluations of men may handicap women if they are seen as less likely to perform well based on these evaluations. These differences suggest that implicit bias may play a role in the qualitative evaluation of surgical residents.

Physician well-being is a significant problem. Here we explore whether one factor, a resident's concern for being judged by one's gender, influences well-being.Over two years at one institution, we surveyed surgical residents on validated measures of well-being as well as the extent to which they felt they were judged because of their gender (gender judgment). We used correlations and linear regression to investigate the relationships between gender judgment and well-being.There were 193 unique respondents (87% response rate). Women had significantly more concerns about gender judgment than men (M = 2.39, SD = 0.73 vs. M = 1.46, SD = 0.62, t = -9.47, p 0.00001). In regression analyses, gender judgment concerns were significantly associated with all three well-being outcomes (Bs -0.34, 0.50, and 0.39, respectively for well-being, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization, all p 0.013).The degree to which residents, both male and female, are concerned about being judged for their gender is significantly associated with worse well-being.

Background The well-being of residents in general surgery is an important factor in their success within training programs. Consequently, it is important to identify individuals at risk for burnout and low levels of well-being as early as possible. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that resident well-being may be related to grit, a psychological factor defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Methods One hundred forty-one residents across 9 surgical specialties at 1 academic medical center were surveyed; the response rate was 84%. Perseverance was measured using the Short Grit Scale. Resident well-being was measured with (1) burnout using the Maslach Burnout Inventory and (2) psychological well-being using the Dupuy Psychological General Well-Being Scale. Results Grit was predictive of later psychological well-being both as measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory ( B = −.20, P = .05) and as measured by the Psychological General Well-Being Scale ( B = .27, P Conclusions Measuring grit may identify those who are at greatest risk for poor psychological well-being in the future. These residents may benefit from counseling to provide support and improve coping skills.