In national scientific meetings, an invitation to coordinate and lead a plenary session, categorical course or symposium epitomizes expertise and thought leadership. For women interventional radiologists (WIR), the quintessential "glass-ceiling"the lack of advancement into leadership positions-still exists. Herein we report gender trends for invited faculty coordinators at the past three annual scientific meetings for the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR). Materials: Faculty rosters for the SIR Annual Meetings from 2015-17, archived by the SIR administration, were reviewed. Faculty leads (coordinators) for plenary sessions, categorical courses, symposia, and "meet-the-expert" sessions were identified. Keynote events and award ceremonies were excluded from the analyses. Results: For each year from 2015-17, there were 126, 192 and 153 faculty invited to coordinate 71, 105, and 93 sessions, respectively. In 2017, 20 WIR were invited to coordinate 19 sessions (13%), an increase from 2015 and 2016 that saw 9 (7%, 8 sessions) and 8 (4%, 7 sessions) WIRs, respectively. Collectively, over the 3 years, nine WIR coordinated 61% of all sessions led by WIR (22 of 36 sessions). There were 7 "meetthe-expert" sessions in 2015 that increased to 37 sessions in 2016 and 2017 with 12, 65 and 39 invited coordinators, respectively. Of these experts, WIR comprised 0%, 4.6% (n ¼ 3) and 7.7% (n ¼ 3), respectively. Finally, subject matter expertise for the 36 WIR-led sessions was concentrated to economics (9/36, 25%), education (5/36, 14%), Women's health (4/36, 11%), and pediatric IR (3, 8%), while oncology, arterial disease, deep venous thrombosis or portal hypertension sessions saw minimal or no WIR representation in leadership or coordinator positions Conclusions: SIR is committed to a more diverse and inclusive workforce, and the new IR residency will mold the next generation of IRs. To achieve gender equity though and foster diversity, it is important to have more women in leadership roles.
