An evaluation of gender diversity in the American Brachytherapy Society

Purpose: Recent evaluation of female representation in major radiation oncology organizations was published by Knoll et al. (IJROBP, 2018) but did not include information about the American Brachytherapy Society (ABS). The objective of this study is to assess trends in gender diversity in the ABS. Materials and Methods: Publicly available information from the ABS and American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) websites were used to determine the proportion of women in various leadership positions and receiving awards and honors. The data were organized by comparing female representation up until 2004 and then from 2005 until current as was done in the article of Knoll et al. to facilitate comparisons with ASTRO. Results: Of the 579 US physician members of the ABS, 155 (27%) are women. There has been an increase in the proportion of female ABS presidents and female Hensche Award recipients between 1978–2004 and 2005–2018. There was a significant difference in the female makeup of the editorial board of the main journals for the ABS (18%) and ASTRO (43%) (p = 0.02). Two other prominent differences between the ABS and ASTRO, however not statistically significant, were the female representation of 2018 fellows (10% vs. 26%, respectively) and recipients of each organization's highest honor between 2005 and 2017 (25% vs. 6%, respectively). Conclusions: Over the past decade, there has been an increase in women representation in the ABS presidency and Henschke awardees. Representation still remains low, relative to ASTRO, in other areas suggesting room for further improvement. Exploring these trends is imperative in developing potential solutions to improve gender diversity in the field of brachytherapy.