Is There Gender Inequality in Plastic Surgery? Evaluation of Society Leadership and Composition of Editorial Boards.

Women now comprise 40.5% of integrated plastic surgery residents, however in 2007 women represented only 11.3% of the leadership positions in plastic surgery societies and journal editorial boards. This study aimed to analyze the trends of female representation in these societies and editorial boards in the past ten years.Names of board members from the major plastic surgery societies (ASPS, PSF, ASAPS, ASMS, ASRM, AAHS, ABPS) for the past ten years and the names of board members from the major plastic journals (PRS, Annals, ASJ, JRM, JCF) from the past 5 years were extracted from their websites. The yearly percentage of female plastic surgery residents was obtained from ACGME published data. The proportions of females in society leadership, editorial boards, and residency were compared with data analyses of time series trend and linear and ARIMA time series modeling.Over the past 10 years, the percentage of female residents has grown steadily from 21.84% to 37.31%. Similarly, female representation in society leadership has grown from 6.78% to 20.29%. Both growth coefficients were statistically significant and showed no statistical difference between the two. In contrast, editorial board leadership over the past 5 years showed statistically insignificant growth and showed a statistically significant difference when compared to the growth of the percentage of female residents and female representation on society leadership.Female representation in plastic surgery society leadership shows promising growth, while their representation on editorial boards showed significantly less growth, which may reflect the slower turnover on these boards.