Gender in authorship and editorship in medical education journals: A bibliometric review

Abstract

Context Gender bias has been observed in the authorship and editorship of academic literature in varied medical specialties. This is important as peer‐reviewed publications, and participation on editorial boards, are closely related to academic productivity and advancement. The aim of this paper was to examine whether gender‐based disparities in authorship and editorship exist in leading medical education journals. Methods A retrospective bibliometric review was conducted of articles published at eight different time‐points across a 49‐year time period (specifically: 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2019) in four leading medical education journals (Academic Medicine, BMC Medical Education, Medical Education and Medical Teacher). First and last (as a proxy for senior) author gender was determined for each article, along with the gender of the 2019 editorial board members of each journal. Chi‐square tests for trend were conducted to examine variations in author gender distributions over time, and binomial tests of proportions were conducted to examine gender distributions in authorship and editorship in 2019. Logistic regression analyses were carried out to determine factors that predicted the odds of authorship by women. Results A total of 5749 articles were included. A significant trend of increased women as first and last authors was observed across all journals. The percentage of women first authors increased from 6.6% in 1970 to 53.7% in 2019 (P < .001), and women last authors increased from 9.5% in 1970 to 46% in 2019 (P < .001). Overall, the distributions of women first authors, last authors and editorial board members in 2019 indicated greater gender parity than many other fields of medicine. Conclusions Positive progress towards gender parity has been made in medical education scholarship. However, future research and efforts are needed to ensure the continued participation, and highlighting, of women in medical education scholarship and to address other factors which may hinder academic advancement for women in this field.

Knowledge syntheses in medical education: Examining author gender, geographic location, and institutional affiliation

“…Additionally, gender parity among authorship teams has been achieved in recent years, which aligns with Madden's recent analysis of four medical education journals across a variety of publication types. 21 Furthermore, similar to the findings from Madden et al examining other medical specialities, [44][45][46] we identified significantly more males in the last author position. In biomedicine, the last position is traditionally occupied by the senior author who takes on a leadership role in the study 47 or is often the principal investigator of the research laboratory conducting the work.…”

“…However, this is a starting point necessary to begin to provide a sense of the field and follows the protocol of similar papers published on this topic. 21,61…”

“…However, this is a starting point necessary to begin to provide a sense of the field and follows the protocol of similar papers published on this topic. 21,61 Third, we did not review the full-texts of the knowledge syntheses we analyzed. Therefore, we are unable to make any claims on how author characteristics may have impacted conduct of the knowledge synthesis or their conclusions.…”

“…Medical education researchers have just begun examining authorship characteristics. For example, a recent study explored author gender from articles published in four medical education journals, 21 and another investigated authors' geographic location in papers indexed as medical education. 22 While both of these recent studies are valuable, they do not specifically examine knowledge syntheses nor do they examine the interplay of these factors.…”

Publishing during COVID‐19: Lessons for health professions education research

“…Medical Education is an international journal with readers, reviewers and authors from all corners of the globe 4 . We are not focused on any particular specialty, any particular health profession, nor any particular level of training/practice.…”