Can State Family Support Policies Level the Playing Field for Early-Career Women in Plastic Surgery? An Analysis of Web-Scraped Data.

Autor: Smith R; Division of Plastic Surgery, Department of Surgery, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA., Karamitros G; Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, University of Maryland Medical Center, Baltimore, 110 S Paca St, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA. gkaramitros@som.umaryland.edu.; Medical School, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece. gkaramitros@som.umaryland.edu., Furnas HJ; Division of Plastic Surgery, Department of Surgery, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA., Goulas S; Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, USA.; Aletheia Research Institution, Palo Alto, CA, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Aesthetic plastic surgery [Aesthetic Plast Surg] 2024 Dec 09. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Dec 09.
DOI: 10.1007/s00266-024-04522-z
Abstrakt: Background: For the young plastic surgeon, the quantity of first-author peer-reviewed publications plays a prominent role in job offers and promotions. Women surgeons carry a disproportionate share of family responsibilities, contributing to their lower representation in positions of leader- ship and influence. Policies protecting reproductive rights and mandating paid family leave (PFL) boost women's participation and productivity in the workplace. However, these policies vary by U.S., state and territory.
Methods: Web-scraped publication data from all PubMed-indexed plastic surgery journals from 2010 to 2022 were evaluated by first-author gender and affiliated state reproductive rights policy and PFL. Female first authors were further compared with men by publication output (1 article; ≥ 2; ≥ 5) by gender and by affiliated state policies.
Results: Protective reproductive rights policies were associated with greater representation of female first authors (3.3 percentage points; p value = 0.003). Protective reproductive rights policies and PFL were associated with a decreased publication gender gap (0.13 articles, p value < 0.001, and 0.18 articles, p value < 0.001, respectively). Protective reproductive policies and PFL had an even greater correlation with higher publication output among female first authors.
Conclusions: Protective reproductive rights and mandatory PFL are not only correlated with women's representation among early-career researchers but with a reduction in the publication gender gap. Legislation and policies aimed at supporting women's family responsibilities are associated with higher research productivity among women and likely play a significant role in attracting more women to higher academic ranks and improving gender equity in professional success in plastic surgery.
Level of Evidence Iv: This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .
Competing Interests: Declarations. Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to disclose. Ethical Approval: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Stanford University (protocol #63918). Human and Animal Rights: This article does not contain any procedures with human participants or animals. Informed Consent: For this type of study obtained informed consent is not required.
(© 2024. Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature and International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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