• Ryan S D'Souza, Brendan Langford, and Susan Moeschler.
• Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN, USA.
• Pain Med. 2021 Jun 4; 22 (6): 1360-1366.

ObjectiveWe quantified the representation of female program directors (PDs) and assessed their respective demographics, academic metrics, and program-related characteristics in chronic pain and acute pain medicine fellowship programs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).MethodsWe identified chronic and acute pain PDs on the ACGME website on November 15, 2020. We abstracted data from public databases and performed comparisons of demographics, academic metrics, and program-related characteristics between female and male PDs.ResultsWe identified 111 chronic pain programs and 35 acute pain programs. Overall, there were 35 (31.5%) chronic pain programs with a female PD and 76 (68.5%) chronic pain programs with a male PD. Female chronic pain PDs published fewer peer-reviewed articles (4.0 publications, interquartile range [IQR] = 2.0-12.0) compared with male chronic pain PDs (9.0 publications, IQR = 4.0-27.0; P = 0.050), although there was no difference in the H-index score (3.0 vs 4.0 publications, respectively; P = 0.062) or senior academic rank status (57.1% vs 50.0%, respectively; P = 0.543). There were 10 (28.6%) acute pain programs with a female PD and 25 (71.4%) acute pain programs with a male PD. Similar to the chronic pain cohort, there was no difference in senior academic rank status based on gender in acute pain PDs (50.0% vs 24.0%, respectively; P = 0.227).ConclusionOur study highlights gender differences in the PD role in ACGME-accredited chronic and acute pain fellowships. Female PDs remain underrepresented and have fewer peer-reviewed publications. Senior academic rank status was similar across genders, contradicting the current evidence in academic medicine.© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Academy of Pain Medicine.All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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