Publication Rates, Ethnic and Sex Disparities in UK and Ireland Surgical Research Prize Presentations: An Analysis of Data From the Moynihan and Patey Prizes From 2000 to 2020

World J Surg (2021) 45:3266–3277 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00268-021-06268-0 ORIGINAL SCIENTIFIC REPORT Publication Rates, Ethnic and Sex Disparities in UK and Ireland Surgical Research Prize Presentations: An Analysis of Data From the Moynihan and Patey Prizes From 2000 to 2020 Jaspreet K. Seehra1 • Christopher Lewis-Lloyd1 • Amanda Koh1 • Elena Theophilidou1 • Prita Daliya1 • Alfred Adiamah1 • Dileep N. Lobo1,2 Accepted: 23 July 2021 / Published online: 12 August 2021 Ó The Author(s) 2021 Abstract Background Presentation at academic conferences is an important marker of research productivity. However, not all accepted abstracts progress to full publication, and there is anecdotal evidence suggesting an imbalance in sex and ethnicity amongst presenters. There is a lack of data evaluating the outcome of prize presentation sessions at academic surgical conferences in the UK. This study aimed to analyse the outcomes and demographics from presentations at prize sessions at two prestigious UK surgical conferences. Methods This retrospective observational study compared data on all Moynihan (Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland) and Patey (Surgical Research Society) prize presentations from 2000 to 2020. The primary outcome was rate of publication. Secondary outcomes included demographic differences in sex and ethnicity, publication according to prize outcome, academic affiliation, time to publication, and journal impact factor. Results Some 442 accepted abstracts were identified over the 21-year period, with 71.0% from the Moynihan sessions and 79.3% from the Patey sessions leading to full publications, with a median time to publication of 448 days (IQR 179–859) in journals with relatively high impact factors (median 5.00; IQR 3.15–6.36). Of the 442 prize presenters, 85 (19.2%) were female. The majority of the presenters were White males (211, 47.7%), followed by Asian males (112, 25.3%). However, there was a continuously increasing overall trend of female presenters from 2000 to 2020 (P = 0.019). Conclusion Publication rates from the two prize sessions were high, with presenters publishing in journals with high impact factors. There, however, was a disparity in sex and ethnicity amongst presenters. Introduction JKS, CLL and AK contributed equally and share first authorship. & Dileep N. Lobo 1 Gastrointestinal Surgery, Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre and National Institute for Health Research Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and University of Nottingham, Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham NG7 2UH, UK 2 MRC Versus Arthritis Centre for Musculoskeletal Ageing Research, School of Life Sciences, Queen’s Medical Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2UH, UK 123 Academic surgical conferences provide a forum to showcase up-to-date surgical research through education, discussion and presentation of new work. Participation at conferences is an important marker of academic productivity. Although abstracts submitted to conferences are reviewed by a panel of scientific experts prior to acceptance, they are not subject to the same rigorous peer-review process of a journal publication. Whilst desirable, full publication is not always achievable and studies have reported that less than 50% of abstracts presented at surgical conferences progress to a full publication [1–4]. World J Surg (2021) 45:3266–3277 There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that imbalances in sex and ethnicity exist amongst presenters at conferences [5–8], which may reflect a lack of diversity within academic surgery. The lower female representation at academic conferences, in addition to the ongoing perceived challenges of balancing a demanding career and family life, further detracts female trainees from considering a career in academic surgery [5, 6]. Previous studies from the USA have highlighted that ethnic groups such as Hispanic, Asian and Afro-Caribbean doctors are under-represented in academia [7, 8]. However, similar data from the UK and Europe are sparse [9]. The Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland (ASGBI, https://www.asgbi.org.uk) annual congress and the Surgical Research Society (SRS, http://surgicalre search.org.uk) annual meeting are two of the most prestigious academic surgical conferences in the UK and Republic of Ireland. The highest ranked abstracts submitted to these annual conferences are shortlisted for presentation at the Moynihan and Patey prize sessions, respectively, with one presenter being awarded each prize. The aims of this retrospective observational study were to evaluate these two prestigious prize sessions in academic surgery in the UK and Republic of Ireland, assessing the publication rate of shortlisted presentations and prize winners, and identify whether there were any sex and ethnic disparities. Methods This retrospective observational study collected data on all ASGBI Moynihan and SRS Patey prize presentations from 2000 to 2020. Data were collected by reviewing published abstracts of prize session presentations and contacting relevant persons within both organisations as well as liaising with library services of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Data collected consisted of the first/ presenting authors’ and senior authors’ sex, ethnicity and academic affiliation, conference prize presentation group, shortlisted presentation prize outcome, publication status and if published, time from presentation to publication and journal impact factor. Data on publication status were gathered by searching web browsers and relevant databases using whole text or keywords from abstract presentations to identify PubMed-cited original works of prize presentations. All data were freely available within the public domain, and therefore, ethical approval was not required. Primary and secondary outcomes The primary outcome measure was the rate of conversion of abstracts to full publications. Secondary outcome measures included the overall differences in demographics of prize presenters and senior authors by sex and ethnicity, 3267 and temporal differences in demographics by prize, presentation prize outcome, academic affiliation, progression to article publication and if published, time to publication and journal impact factor. Variable definitions Sex [10] and ethnicity of the first/presenting authors and senior authors were derived from their forename and surname listed on the published presentation abstract using ‘‘Gender (https://gender-api.com/) and NamSor Version 2 diasporaBatch (https://www.namsor.com/)’’ application programming interfaces (API), respectively. Ethnicity was coded into four main ethnic groups (White, Asian, Black, Other/Arab) as defined by the Office for National Statistics (https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsand standards/measuringequality/ethnicgroupnationalidentityan dreligion). The sex and ethnicity APIs are automated linguistic matching sof (...truncated)