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Observational Study
. 2018 Jan 18;8(1):e019796.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-019796.

Proportion of women presenters at medical grand rounds at major academic centres in Canada: a retrospective observational study

Danielle Buell  1 , Brenda R Hemmelgarn  2 , Sharon E Straus  1   3
Affiliations
Observational Study

Proportion of women presenters at medical grand rounds at major academic centres in Canada: a retrospective observational study

Danielle Buell et al. BMJ Open. .

Abstract

Objective: To assess the proportion of women who presented research or medical grand rounds at five major academic hospitals in Canada.

Design: A cross-sectional study.

Setting: Five major university-affiliated hospitals in Toronto and Calgary.

Results: Overall, at all sites and types of academic rounds, there were an average of 17% fewer women presenting than men (P<0.001). There were an average of 32% and 21% more men presenting at the city-wide grand rounds in cities A and B, respectively (P<0.001, P=0.002). There were more male speakers at four out of five types of rounds. The proportion of women presenting on average was proportional to the Canadian workforce, but on average, below the proportion of female residents and medical students (median ratio 1.1, 0.7 and 0.8, respectively).

Conclusion: Our study demonstrated a lower proportion of females in an important outlet for academic recognition and role modelling. This provides a possible contributing factor to the under-representation of women in academic medicine and an area that can be systematically targeted to promote equity.

Keywords: internal medicine.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Proportion of women presenters by site and type of rounds between 2011 and 2015, normalised to proportion of women within internal medicine, residents in internal medicine and medical students. BSRR, basic science research rounds; CRR, clinical research rounds; CWGR, city-wide grand rounds; MGR, medical grand rounds, POPSCI, popular science lectures.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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