Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

Promoting diversity and equality across surgical specialties

Nature Reviews Urology volume 19, page 381 (2022)Cite this article

Subjects

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

In 2020, Nature Reviews Urology made a pledge to actively address bias and discrimination in urology1. In a Viewpoint article (Rising Black voices in urology — the next generation. Nat. Rev. Urol. 18, 327–335 (2021)), twelve medical students discussed how urology programmes can better appeal to Black students through active mentorship and representation2. Similar to urology, the surgical subspecialty of cardiothoracic surgery is not a core component of the standard medical school curriculum and requires an extra effort to attract trainees. The lack of diversity in cardiothoracic surgery among faculty members and residents is comparable to the one observed in urology. The percentage of women and under-represented in medicine (UIM, defined by the Association of American Medical Colleges as racial and ethnic populations under-represented in medicine relative to their percentage in the general population) in cardiothoracic surgery is even lower than in urology3. In 2019, women accounted for 8% of cardiothoracic surgeons compared with 9.5% of urologists4. Among cardiothoracic surgery residents, 26% are women and 9.5% are UIM (3% Black), similar to the situation in urology, in which 28% of residents are women and 11% are UIM (3.8% Black). Achua and colleagues2 note that mentorship and representation are essential to promote interest in non-core specialties, but we have to do it right2,5.

A survey published in the American Surgeon reported specialty recommendations from American College of Surgeons’ mentors to female mentees6. The specialty that was the least recommended to women was cardiothoracic surgery. In the survey, 20% of urologists advised only men to pursue urology as a specialty, whereas 57% of cardiothoracic surgeons advised only men to pursue cardiothoracic surgery. These data indicate that urologists are demonstrating far less sexism than cardiothoracic surgeons, which should help turn the tide in urology moving forward.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Black lives in urology: addressing the bias and redressing the balance. Nat. Rev. Urol. 17, 423 (2020).

  2. Achua, J. K. et al. Rising Black voices in urology — the next generation. Nat. Rev. Urol. 18, 327–335 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Moon, M. R. Equal means equal: cardiothoracic surgery in its second century. J. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg. 161, 1381–1389 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Association of American Medical Colleges. 2020 physician specialty data report: active physicians by sex and specialty, 2019. AAMC https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/workforce/interactive-data/active-physicians-sex-and-specialty-2019 (2020).

  5. Luc, J. G. Y., Preventza, O., Moon, M. R. & Antonoff, M. B. Keep the pipeline open for women applying to cardiothoracic surgery. Am. Surg. 87, 162–163 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Altieri, M. S., Price, K. L., Yang, J., Jones, D. B. & Pryor, A. D. What are women being advised by mentors when applying to surgery? Am. Surg. 86, 266–272 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Vaporciyan, A. A. et al. Factors affecting interest in cardiothoracic surgery: survey of North American general surgery residents. J. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg. 137, 1054–1062 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. McKinley, S. K. et al. Identification of specific educational targets to improve the student surgical clerkship experience. J. Surg. Res. 254, 49–57 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Moon, M. R. Is this an adventure? J. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg. 162, 907–916 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Moon, M. R. Diversity in cardiothoracic surgery: the time has come. Asian Cardiovasc. Thorac. Ann. 29, 877–883 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Marc R. Moon

Authors
  1. Marc R. Moon
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marc R. Moon.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Moon, M.R. Promoting diversity and equality across surgical specialties. Nat Rev Urol 19, 381 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41585-021-00548-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41585-021-00548-z

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing