Gender Differences in Academic Productivity and Academic Career Choice Among Urology Residents

Purpose: Gender disparities have long existed in medicine but they have not been well examined in urology. We analyzed a large cohort of graduating urology residents to investigate gender disparities in academic productivity, as measured by peer reviewed publications and academic career choice.Materials and Methods: We assembled a list of urology residents who graduated from 2002 through 2008 who were affiliated with the top 50 urology hospitals, as ranked by 2009 U.S. News & World Report. PubMed® was queried to determine the publication output of each resident during the last 3 years of residency. We used an Internet search to determine the fellowship training, career choice and academic rank of each subject. Gender effects on each factor were evaluated.Results: A total of 459 male (84.5%) and 84 female (15.5%) residents were included in analysis. During residency women produced fewer total publications (average 3.0 vs 4.8, p = 0.01) and fewer as first author (average 1.8 vs 2.5, p = 0.03) than men. A hi...