Gender representation among speakers at the Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists meetings: A retrospective analysis.

Purpose: This study investigates the gender distribution of speakers at the Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists (JSA) annual and branch meetings of the Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists.

Methods: We examined the gender of speakers in sessions at both JSA annual and branch meetings. We also verified the speakers' Japanese medical licensure status and years of qualification.

Results: We analyzed 383 sessions from JSA annual meetings between 2019 and 2024, which included 827 speaker slots. Of them, 679 (82.1%) were men and 148 (17.9%) were women. Women were significantly underrepresented in sessions with fewer speaker slots (chi-square test, p =  0.006; trend test, p <  0.001). Furthermore, sessions were frequently composed entirely of men: 73.1% of all sessions and 44.3% of panel presentations were solely male participants. Among the subspecialties, female representation was high in obstetric anesthesia (36.8%) and pediatric anesthesia (31.8%) but low in cardiovascular anesthesia (6.3%). Among 508 speakers with confirmed Japanese medical licenses, 425 (83.7%) were men, and 83 (16.3%) were women, with no significant differences in gender distribution based on the year of licensure (Fisher's exact test, p =  0.968; trend test, p =  0.463). Additionally, we examined 104 sessions from JSA branch meetings between 2019 and 2023, comprising 176 speaker slots. Of them, 147 (83.5%) were men and 29 (16.5%) were women. There was no significant difference in gender distribution among branch meetings across different regions (p =  0.984).

Conclusion: These findings underscore the need for proactive measures to promote gender diversity in Japan's anesthesiology field.