Balancing Panels: Lets Call on Women Speakers

Gender inequality in medical conference speaking is glaring, women are vastly under-represented. Lack of gender diversity in leadership spills into speaking opportunities at conferences, leading to a self-propagating cycle of gender inequality. Breaking this cycle is vital to closing the gap, since speaking at conferences is a key element of academic advancement.

This manuscript aims to highlight the paucity of women speakers at medical conferences despite adequate expertise, the importance of bringing balance to the stage and ways to improve visibility of women speakers.

Extensive search was conducted for articles on pubmed, google scholar, Science Direct, WVU Library database using manels.

Increased visibility of women on stage encourages women attendees and trainees to pursue leadership and speaking opportunities, which is key to "closing the gender gap" for future generations. Gender balanced panels on stage is an important aspect of "Diversity and Inclusion," which will motivate and encourage other women workforce to follow suit.