Gender of Presenters at Ophthalmology Conferences between 2015-2017

Abstract Purpose To analyze the proportion of females presenting at 9 major ophthalmology conferences over 3 years. Design Retrospective observational study Methods Conference brochures from 9 national ophthalmology conferences from 2015-2017 were analyzed. Genders of first author presenters of papers and non-papers (moderators, presenters at symposia, panel discussions, workshops/ instructional courses) were recorded. Comparisons were made to the gender ratio of board-certified ophthalmologists. Student’s t-test and Cochran-Armitage trend test was used for analysis, with significance at p Results Of 14,214 speakers, 30.5% were female, statistically higher than the expected 25.4% (p Conclusions Our results highlight positive trends: the overall proportions of female speakers exceed ABO estimates of female ophthalmologists. However, the gender gap remains at many subspecialty conferences, especially for non-papers, which are more likely to require invitations rather than being self-submitted. As demographics continue to change, further efforts are needed to assure equitable selection of conference presenters.