Representation of Women at Select Academic Ophthalmology Institutions in the United States

Purpose: To investigate the representation of women among ophthalmology faculty members at select academic institutions in the United States (US). Design: Cross-sectional study Subjects: Clinical faculty members at the top 20 academic ophthalmology institutions in the U.S. according to US News and World Report ranking Methods: Gender as reported on institutional websites either directly or via pronouns, academic rank, medical school graduation year, and subspecialty were collected about clinical faculty members with MD, MD/PhD, MBBS or DO from their respective institutional websites. The number of publications for each faculty member was collected using Scopus ® (Elsevier, Netherlands). One way z-test was used to compare proportions, and an independent t-test was used to compare means. Main Outcome Measures: Gender proportions across data points described in the Methods. Results: Women comprised 416 (38%) of the 1099 ophthalmology faculty members reviewed (z-statistic: -0.43, p Conclusion: There remain more men than women at some of the top academic ophthalmology institutions in the US and significantly fewer women at the full professor rank. This gap in representation appears to be narrowing over time. Additional efforts to reduce the challenges faced by women in academic ophthalmology may narrow this gap further.