Gender Representation Among Plenary Panel Speakers at the American Urological Association Annual Meeting

To examine trends in the representation of women in plenary panels at the American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting.

A review of all plenary sessions from AUA Annual Meetings during 2017-2019 was performed. The number and proportion of invited moderators and panelists by gender were recorded and analyzed by the topic of each plenary session. We performed descriptive analyses and tested temporal trends in gender representation.

A total of 168 plenary panels were held at the AUA meetings, 62 panels in 2017, 51 panels in 2018, and 55 panels in 2019. Overall, 59% of panels were all-male panels (61% in 2017, 67% in 2018, and 49% in 2019) with exclusively male moderators and panelists. There was no significant change in the proportion of all-male panels during the study period (P = .20). Among the 168 panels, 153 (91%) had a male moderator, and 107 (64%) had only male panelists. Seventy-five unique female speakers accounted for 90 (12%) of the 742 total panel speaking roles. There was significant variation in the proportion of female speakers among 6 plenary topics (P = .03); the overall proportion of all-male panels was highest for sexual medicine sessions (14 of 18 panels, 78%) and lowest for female pelvic medicine sessions (5 of 19 panels, 26%).

Female representation in plenary panels at recent AUA Annual Meetings did not significantly change, with the majority of panels composed entirely of male speakers. Continued evaluation of these trends may inform efforts to achieve gender equality at national urology meetings.