Women in Neurointervention - SLICE Next Frontiers 2022

To go further - Master&Fellow Analysis

Within certain specialties, there is gender disparities, in neuro-intervention the percentage of women practicing remains low. But, over recent years, the representation might indicate that more women have entered the neuro-interventional workforce.

Integrated Vascular Surgery residency programs now attract directly individuals from medical schools, yet there remains an apparent underrepresentation of women in every consecutively higher medical education tier. Very few women choose to practice in the endovascular surgical neuroradiology area.

One of the solution is to start recruiting women very early. At universities and medical schools; increasing the awareness of cardiovascular medicine as a specialization will help us to accomplish this. At the same time, the more prevalent the sightings of women working in neuro-interventional science, the more we can address discrimination and barriers that may occurs.

There is trouble believing the reasons given are the true reasons, partly because the fields of general surgery and emergency medicine are 38% female, neurosurgery is 16% female, and pathology (which is very technical and has no physician-patient relationships) is 50% female.

At the moment, there are an increasing number of professionals needed in the neurological field so we need to extend our hand to include women as part of this profession, because there are an increasing number of professionals needed. Thus, more women in the field will lead to better knowledge about their risks and how they can be reduced, helping us address concerns that may cause women to avoid working in the field of neuro-interventional medicine like exposure to ionizing radiation in their jobs that can impact pregnancy.

During meetings, women can encounter hostile attitudes from fellow physicians, who believe a colleagues pregnancy has negatively affected their own working hours. Although international neurointerventional groups are diverse in terms of training backgrounds and ethnicities, the fact is women are still underrepresented. Senior female interventionalists also need to seek opportunities to foster interest among younger women.

It is easy to come up with excuses as to why this has happened, but we should find ways to grow the numbers of women working as neurointerventionists. The only reason it has happened is that there are now more women and people of color with the expertise and credentials needed to do the work.

Sources :

https://www.yahoo.com/now/covid-19s-effect-stroke-artificial-160100705.html
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/STROKEAHA.120.029655