Invited African-American Radiation Oncology Grand Rounds Speakers: DEI or Die?

Invitations for grand rounds are typically used to evaluate faculty promotion in Radiation Oncology. To shed light on potential barriers to career progression, we conducted a study examining the racial and gender demographics of invited speakers and the inclusion of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)-related talks among African-American radiation oncology speakers.

Radiation oncology programs in the US were contacted to obtain a list of speakers invited to their institution along with their topics presented between January 2021 and December 2022. Speakers were categorized demographically by race and gender; speaker demographics were determined by facial recognition and internet investigation. Non-faculty were eliminated from analysis. Talk topics were categorized as either DEI or non-DEI from the speaker's talk title. The Fisher's exact test was used for statistical analysis, with significance set at p < 0.05.

A total of 252 invited speakers and their associated talk topics were obtained from 51 radiation oncology programs. Of these speakers, 98 were female (38.9%) and 16 were African-American race (6.3%). The invited talk topic was DEI-related in 7% of total cases. Among speakers not of African-American race, this was 4.2% (10/236); among African-American speakers, it was 50% (8/16). This difference reached statistical significance (p < 0.0001).

A significant proportion of invited African-American radiation oncology grand rounds/visiting professor talks are focused on the topic of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), compared with less than 5% of non-African-American invited speakers. Targeted efforts to expand African-American representation in non-DEI topics are needed to ensure and expand diversity in Radiation Oncology.