J. M. Juprasert1, H. L. Yeo1 1NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center,Department Of Surgery,New York, NY, USA
Introduction: Over the past 15 years, the number of women in academic surgery has increased dramatically, however, even as recently as 2015, women only accounted for 25% of assistant professors of surgery and <10% of full professors. Based on the current trajectory, women will not reach parity in academic surgery for over 100 yrs. There is a concern that part of the disparity at the top levels may be attributed to gender discrimination, lack of visible role models, or lack of support and mentorship. Because early funding is so important in an academic career, we sought to evaluate gender differences in NIH career development funding.
Methods: Secondary analysis of prospectively collected data from fiscal year 2017 and 2018 from the NIH RePORTer database. NIH K-series funding awards to principal investigators (PIs) were obtained and used to examine faculty from surgery departments for academic rank and gender. Awardees with at least an M.D. were included in the study to focus our cohort on clinical academic surgeons. K1, K07, K08, K22, K23 were included in the study to investigate early career awards; K24 recipients were excluded because they are for mid-career investigators. The Scopus and Pubmed databases were used to ascertain publication statistics of these PIs. Statistical trend tests were performed using t-test, ANOVA, and chi-squared test wherever appropriate with STATA v13.1.
Results: 63 surgical PIs (33% women vs 67% men) were identified who received a K-series grant from the NIH between 2017-18. The average number of first author publications for these awardees was 14.5 (+/-10) for women and 15.7 (+/-11) for men (p=0.67). The average number of senior author publications for these K awardees were 9.9 (+/-9) for women and 12.2 (+/-13) for men (p=0.47). The average number of total publications for K awardees was not significantly different for women (43.6+/-24) vs. men (53.2+/-32.2, p=0.23). The mean H-index for female faculty was 14.0 (+/-5) and 16.4 (+/-7) for men (p=0.15). Of the grants that were granted, 38 (60%) were basic science, 16 (25%) were translational, and 9 (14%) were health services related. 32 recipients were assistant professors (31% were women). 30 recipients were associate professors (37% were women). The University of Michigan had the most recipients of any institution with 10 PIS (4 of whom are women) receiving grants; Northwestern University and University of Pennsylvania had the second highest with 5 PIS. 31 total institutions had at least one recipient.
Conclusion: The NIH K grant funding for early career women surgeons has not been previously described. There do not appear to be major gender related discrepancies in early career funding for surgeons.