Speaker Gender Representation at the American Society of Anesthesiology Annual Meeting: 2011-2016

The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) Annual Meeting is the primary venue for anesthesiologists to present research, share innovations, and build networks. Herein, we describe gender representation for physician speakers at the Annual Meeting relative to the specialty overall. Details of ASA Annual Meeting presentations for individuals and panels were abstracted from the ASA archives for 2011-2016. Observed speaker gender composition was compared to expected composition based on the gender distribution of members of the ASA. There were 5167 speaker slots across 2025 presentations and panels. Of the speaker slots, 3874 were assigned to men and 1293 to women. Speaker slot gender composition was relatively consistent between 2011 and 2016 (annual percentage 22.3%-27.7% women, trend test P =.062). ASA membership composition of women increased slightly over the study period (24%-28%). The overall observed number of women in speaker slots over the study period did not differ significantly from what would be expected based on the ASA membership composition (25.0% observed versus 25.9% expected; P =.153). However, the percentage of single speakers who were women was significantly less than would be expected based on the ASA gender distribution (20.2% observed versus 25.9% expected; P <.001). Interestingly, for panels that included 2-5 anesthesiologists, single-gender panels were more common than would be expected by chance, with all-male panels predominating (all P <.01). The gender composition of speakers at the ASA Annual Meeting largely reflected gender composition within the specialty, although women were not overrepresented at any meeting. The predominance of single-gender panels and underrepresentation of women as single speakers is a potential target to improve gender representation.