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Session: Best of Professional [Return to Session]

Improved Gender Distribution of Moderators and Speakers at AAPM Annual Meetings Over Time

A Roso-Mares1, S St. James2, A Cetnar3, J Pollard-Larkin4, R Jagsi5, S Evans6, J Moran7, L Cervino8*, (1) ,San Diego, CA, (2) Huntsman Cancer Institute, Salt Lake City, Utah, (3) The Ohio State University - James Cancer Hospital, Columbus, OH, (4) MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, (5) University Of Michigan, ,,(6) Yale University, New Haven, CT, (7) Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, (8) Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY

Presentations

MO-C930-BOP-F1-1 (Monday, 7/11/2022) 9:30 AM - 10:00 AM [Eastern Time (GMT-4)]

Exhibit Hall | Forum 1

Purpose: To evaluate the change over time of gender distribution for the invited speakers and moderators at the AAPM Annual Meeting (AM).

Methods: To understand temporal trends in gender representation among invited speakers and moderators at AAPM AM, 3 time points, each separated by about 5 years, were selected for analysis (2012, 2017, 2021). The gender composition for each year was self-reported by meeting participants. Because gender data prior to 2019 is limited to two groups for the classification (women and men), all data were merged in these two groups. The data regarding the undeclared speakers was found in public profiles, except for those people who selected the option “Prefer not to respond”. Furthermore, the number of talks and multiple talks by one speaker given at each AM were compared.

Results: For the period evaluated, opportunities as an invited speaker or moderator at the AM increased over the years. The number of invited speakers were 244, 345, and 380 in 2012, 2017, and 2021, respectively. Similarly, invited moderators represented 189, 224, and 262 individuals in each year, respectively. The percentage of women increased over time, both among invited speakers: 17% women in 2012, 25% in 2017, and 39% in 2021; and moderators: 21%, 19.9% and 42% in each year respectively. The overall percentage of speakers who gave more than one talk decreased over the years, from 14% in 2012 to 10% in 2021.

Conclusion: Women’s representation at the AAPM Annual Meeting is steadily increasing over time. The efforts made to ensure equal opportunities in the AAPM AM show promising results that encourage us to continue working along this line. These results align well with the initiatives put in place by AAPM to increase equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), including EDI as a strategic goal for the association in 2018.

Keywords

Quality Assurance, Health Physics, Observer Performance

Taxonomy

Education: Evaluation

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