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The Impact of Women Leading Academic Collaborations in Plastic Surgery
Tiffany Jeong*, Nicolás M Kass*, Hilary Y Liu*, Angel Dixon, Nia Buckner, José Antonio Arellano, Vu T Nguyen, Francesco M Egro, Jesse A Goldstein, Carolyn De La Cruz
*Authors contributed equally to preparation of abstract and manuscript
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Department of Plastic Surgery
2024-01-09
Presenter: Tiffany Jeong
Affidavit:
Francesco M Egro
Director Name: Francesco M Egro
Author Category: Medical Student
Presentation Category: Clinical
Abstract Category: General Reconstruction
Introduction
In this study, we explore how gender influences academic collaboration among plastic surgeons, according to Impact Factor (IF), overall rates of collaboration, and the departments with which they collaborate.
Methods
PubMed was queried for all articles from academic plastic surgery programs between 2018 and 2023. Collaborative articles were defined as a plastic surgery senior author with at least one author who was not from the same plastic surgery department. The gender were determined using Gender-API, a validated approach to assigning gender based on first name. Gender predominance in a collaborating specialty was determined by the AAMC 2021 Physican Specialty Data Report.
Results
Among 21,068 articles initially retrieved, 6,525 qualified for inclusion. 17.2% of publications were led by female authors and 38.3% had a female first author (χ2 =691.21, p<<.0001). Proportions engaging in collaboration were similar, 18.3% and 37.9%, respectively. While female lead authors in plastic surgery have fewer publications (3.83±7.31 vs 5.88±11.1, p<0.001) we found that the average journal IF was significantly greater in female-led articles (3.83±0.66 vs 3.3±4.7, p=0.012) than in male led articles. Female senior authors were more likely to publish collaborations with specialties that had a higher proportion of women (χ2=5.30, p-value=0.021).
Conclusion
We demonstrate the nuanced effect of collaboration on research productivity for female authors in plastic surgery. In particular, female plastic surgery lead authorship and overall collaboration coincides with the gender proportions in the field. Furthermore, female lead authors in plastic surgery published in significantly higher impact factor journals.
