Gender gap in pediatric surgery and pediatric urology meetings across Latin America: Fair enough?

Previous studies have highlighted growing awareness of female involvement in scientific meetings, consistently reporting lower participation rates for women physicians overall. However, few reports have specifically addressed gender participation in pediatric surgery and urology conferences. This study aimed to evaluate women’s participation in major Latin American congresses of pediatric surgery and pediatric urology. As a secondary objective, it assessed women’s representation in scientific societies and the proportion of female trainees in pediatric surgery across Latin American countries A retrospective review of publicly available pediatric surgery meeting programs (2018–2023) was conducted to assess participation by gender and role. Participation roles were categorized as clinical lecturer, participant in clinical round table, or moderator. Female participation was compared against an expected parity value of 0.5 using proportion and Chi-square tests. Participation in organizational committees, sponsored symposia, or pre-conference courses was excluded. Data on the number and gender of members in pediatric surgical societies from five Latin American countries were collected, along with the number and gender of residents currently in pediatric surgery training in the same countries. Twelve scientific programs comprising 968 participations in pediatric surgery/urology meetings were analyzed. Men accounted for 68% of all participations. In keynote lectures, the gender gap widened, with 82% of participations by men. Across all participation types, statistically significant differences were observed: lecturers ( p < 0.001), panel participants ( p < 0.001), and moderators ( p < 0.001). Women were significantly less represented as lecturers compared with moderators ( p < 0.001). Female representation in pediatric surgery scientific societies across Latin America was approximately 45%, and nearly 60% of current trainees in pediatric surgery were women. Despite increased awareness of the gender gap, women remain markedly underrepresented in pediatric surgery and pediatric urology meetings—especially in keynote lectures, where participation by women was only 18%. These findings contrast with the relatively high proportion of women in professional societies and among surgical trainees.