State of the Otolaryngology Union-It’s Raining Men, Hold the Hallelujah Evaluating Sponsorship Opportunities by Gender

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: A relatively new term for a well-practiced phenomenon, sponsorship, is essential to career advancement, but recent studies suggest that opportunities are not equal between men and women in surgical fields. With funding from the 2024 AAO-HNSF Women in Otolaryngology Endowment Grant, we have quantified the state of sponsorship in otolaryngology by gender on the academic, national, and research levels, and identified areas lacking that merit discussion and intervention. The goal of this panel is to present our findings and explore opportunities for more equitable sponsorship within Otolaryngology at each level.

The proportion of women in leadership positions within academic otolaryngology departments varies significantly by whether the department is run by a man or a women. Furthermore, there appears to be a bottleneck in promotion of women up the ranks of professorship when compared to the rates of promotion of men. We seek to make department leaders aware of these findings and discuss potential interventions to ensure equitable opportunities for men and women within otolaryngology academia.

Additionally, while female representation in national leadership is proportional to practicing female otolaryngologists, panelist gender ratios differ significantly by gender of moderator. This reveals a sizeable difference in the available opportunity for national sponsorship by gender; we endeavor to converse with national leaders about how to take these findings into consideration when planning future conferences and being strategic about providing opportunities for career advancement equally to both genders.

Finally, we evaluated NIH funding for early career grants by gender and observed that funding in otolaryngology has been awarded to men proportionate to the current gender distribution in ENT. Thus, NIH-level funding is not currently affected by a significant gender bias. We hope to explore with panel attendees what lessons can be learned from sponsorship at the research level and applied to the areas identified as lacking in sponsorship at the academic and national levels.

OUTCOME OBJECTIVE 1: Compare available sponsorship opportunities between men and women in academic, national, and research arenas.

OUTCOME OBJECTIVE 2: Analyze factors contributing to inequitable access to sponsorship by gender.

OUTCOME OBJECTIVE 3: Identify areas and ideate interventions for more equitable sponsorship in all practice settings.

BACKGROUND STATEMENT: Differential access to sponsorship in surgical fields limits career advancement for female surgeons compared to male peers. Our study quantifying sponsorship by gender in otolaryngology found significant disparities that require timely remedy to ensure an equitable future our field.

Comprehensive Otolaryngology Track Statement :