Representation of Women on Plastic Surgery Journal Editorial Boards in the United States

Background: During the past decade, a growing number of women have pursued medical careers, including in plastic surgery. However, female physicians have tended to be underrepresented in a variety of leadership roles in their respective specialties. Objectives: The authors sought to evaluate the representation of female plastic surgeons on the editorial boards of high-impact plastic surgery journals. Methods: The gender of editorial board members on 3 high-impact plastic surgery journals was evaluated from 2009 and 2018. The number of women on each editorial board was then compared with the number of board-certified female plastic surgeons (BCFPS) and board-certified female academic plastic surgeons (BCFAPS), a subgroup of BCFPS. Results: There were 555 unique editorial board members from Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Aesthetic Surgery Journal, and Annals of Plastic Surgery from 2009 to 2018. During that period, 72 editors (13.0%) were women. At the beginning of the study, there were significantly fewer female editors than expected based on proportionate representation of BCFPS and BCFAPS to all board-certified plastic surgeons (P = 0.007 and 0.007, respectively). During the study, there was a 177% increase in women holding editorial board positions. At study end, women were adequately represented on all 3 editorial boards compared with their population data (BCFPS and BCFAPS). Conclusions: During the 10 years of this study (2009-2018), editorial boards have overcome the underrepresentation of women on, and female plastic surgeons are currently adequately represented on the top 3 high-impact journal editorial boards.