ArticleJournal of the Royal Society of Medicine2009
The gender imbalance in academic medicine: a study of female authorship in the United Kingdom.
Article in Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 70 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
70 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 185 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Socioeconomic and demographic predictors of extracurricular achievements among UK medical students (FAST study).BMJ open · 2025Article
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- Gastroenterology Training and Career in Women: Challenges and Opportunities.United European gastroenterology journal · 2025Review
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- Authorship of Italian medical literature on neuroendocrine neoplasms: any gender gap?Journal of endocrinological investigation · 2024Article
- Gender Disparity in Leading Authorship of Critical Care Clinical Trials: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Cureus · 2024Review
- Ethnicity and gender trends of UK authors inEClinicalMedicine · 2023Article
- The Under-representation and Stagnation of Female, Black, and Hispanic Authorship in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2023Article
- Female Dynamics in Authorship of Scientific Publications in the Public Library of Science: A 10-year Bibliometric Analysis of Biomedical Research.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2023Article
- Article
- Perceptions of gender equity and markers of achievement in a National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre: a qualitative study.Health research policy and systems · 2022Article
- Why are women still leaving academic medicine? A qualitative study within a London Medical School.BMJ open · 2022Article
- Gender equality in academic gastroenterology: a review of gastroenterology literature over four decades.Irish journal of medical science · 2022Review
- Female leadership in oncology-has progress stalled? Data from the ESMO W4O authorship and monitoring studies.ESMO open · 2021Article
- Women's Authorship of Reviews in Ophthalmic Journals Over Time.Asia-Pacific journal of ophthalmology (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2021Article
- Gender parity in scientific authorship in a National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre: a bibliometric analysis.BMJ open · 2021Article
- Gender Can Influence Student Experiences in MD-PhD Training.Journal of women's health (2002) · 2021Article
10 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesA shortfall exists of female doctors in senior academic posts in the United Kingdom. Career progression depends on measures of esteem, including publication in prestigious journals. This study investigates gender differences in first and senior authorship in six peer-reviewed British journals and factors that are associated with publication rates. DESIGN AND
main outcome measuresData was collected on United Kingdom first and senior authors who had published in the British Medical Journal, Lancet, British Journal of Surgery, Gut, British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and the Archives of Diseases in Childhood. Authorship and gender were quantified for 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2004 (n=6457). In addition, selected questions from the Athena Survey of Science Engineering and Technology (ASSET2006), web-based doctor's self-report of publications were also analysed (n=1162).
resultsFemale first authors increased from 10.5% in 1970 to 36.5% in 2004 (p<0.001) while female senior authors only increased from 12.3% to 16.5% (p=0.046). Within individual journals, the largest rise was in British Journal of Obstetric and Gynaecology with 4.5- and 3-fold increases for first and senior authors, respectively. In contrast, female senior authors marginally declined in Gut and Lancet by 2.8% and 2.2%, respectively. ASSET2006 identified that female respondents who were parents were less likely to have publications as sole (p=0.02) and joint authors (p<0.001) compared to male respondents. Female respondents with care responsibilities for parents/partner also had less publications as lead authors compared to those without carer responsibilities (p<0.001).
conclusionThe increase in UK female first authors is encouraging. In contrast, there is considerable lag and in some specialties a decline in female senior authors. Factors that could narrow the gender gap in authorship should be sought and addressed.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.