PDF herunterladen
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Asian J Neurosurg 2020; 15(04): 828-832
DOI: 10.4103/ajns.AJNS_108_20
Review Article

Women in Neurosurgery (WIN): Barriers to progress, world WIN directory and the way forward

Sneha Balasubramanian
Department of Neurosurgery, Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
,
Dhivya Palanisamy
1   Department of Neurosurgery, Apollo KH Hospital, Vellore, Tamil Nadu
,
Souad Bakhti
2   Department of Neurosurgery, Medical School University Algiers, 16022 Algiers
,
Najia El Abbadi
3   Department of Neurosurgery, Cheikh Zaid International University Hospital, Rabat
,
Nelci Collange
4   CENEPE, Pediatric Neurosurgical Center, São Paulo
,
Claire Karekezi
5   Department of Neurosurgery, Rwanda Military Hospital, Kigali
,
Boon Liew
6   Department of Neurosurgery, Hospital Sungai Buloh, Selangor
,
Yoko Kato
7   Department of Neurosurgery, Fujita Health University Bantane Hospital, Nagoya
› Institutsangaben
› Weitere Informationen
Auch verfügbar auf
   Lizenzen und Reprints

Women in Neurosurgery (WIN) have come a long way and are making inroads in every neurosurgical subspecialty. There has been a worldwide increase in the number of female neurosurgeons both in the training and practice. Although this is a welcome trend, gender equality at work in terms of opportunities, promotions, and pay scales are yet to be attained. This is more apparent in the developing and underdeveloped nations. Barriers for a female neurosurgeon exist in every phase before entering residency, during training, and at workplace. In the neurosurgical specialty, only a few women are in chief academic and leadership positions, and this situation needs to improve. WIN should be motivated to pursue fellowships, sub-specialty training, research, and academic activities. Furthermore, men should come forward to mentor women, only then the gender debates will disappear and true excellence in neurosurgery can be attained. This article reviews the issues that are relevant in the present era focusing on the barriers faced by female neurosurgeons in the developing and underdeveloped countries and the possible solutions to achieve gender equality in neurosurgery. The authors also present the data from the World WIN Directory collected as a part of Asian Congress of Neurological Surgeons-WINS project 2019. These numbers are expected to grow as the WIN progress and add value to the neurosurgical community at large.

Key-words:

Barriers - female neurosurgeons - gender equality - leadership - mentoring - work-life balance - world WIN directory

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.




Publikationsverlauf

Eingereicht: 24. März 2020

Angenommen: 04. Juli 2020

Artikel online veröffentlicht:
16. August 2022

© 2020. Asian Congress of Neurological Surgeons. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Thieme Medical and Scientific Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
A-12, 2nd Floor, Sector 2, Noida-201301 UP, India

 

  • References

  • 1 Women in Neurosurgery: Past, Present, and Future Congress of Neurological Surgeons. Available from: https://www.cns.org/publications/congress-quarterly/congress-quarterly-spring-2015/women-neurosurgery-past-present. [Last accessed on 2019 Sep 27].
  • 2 Renfrow JJ, Rodriguez A, Liu A, Pilitsis JG, Samadani U, Ganju A, et al. Positive trends in neurosurgery enrollment and attrition: Analysis of the 2000-2009 female neurosurgery resident cohort. J Neurosurg 2016;124:834-9.
  • 3 Palanisamy D, Battacharjee S. What it is to be a Woman neurosurgeon in India: A survey. Asian J Neurosurg 2019;14:808-14.
  • 4 Abosch A, Rutka JT. Women in neurosurgery: Inequality redux. J Neurosurg 2018;129:277-81.
  • 5 Corley J, Williamson T. Women in neurosurgery: Final frontier of career women's movement. World Neurosurg 2018;111:130-1.
  • 6 Spetzler RF. Progress of women in neurosurgery. Asian J Neurosurg 2011;6:6-12.
  • 7 Fujimaki T, Shibui S, Kato Y, Matsumura A, Yamasaki M, Date I, et al. Working conditions and lifestyle of female surgeons affiliated to the Japan neurosurgical society: Findings of individual and institutional surveys. Neurol Med Chir (Tokyo) 2016;56:704-8.
  • 8 Kato Y. Women in neurosurgery: A new paradigm of thought will emerge. World Neurosurg 2016;86:A16-7.
  • 9 Available from: https://www.cma.ca/sites/default/files/2019-01/neurosurgery-e.pdf. [Last accessed on 2020 Mar 01].
  • 10 Available from: http://levelmedicine.org.au/resources/ completed- fellowship-papers/gender-equity-in-medical- specialties/. [Last accessed on 2020 Mar 20].
  • 11 Hoover EL. Mentoring women in academic surgery: Overcoming institutional barriers to success. J Natl Med Assoc 2006;98:1542-5.
  • 12 Bickel J. How men can excel as mentors of women. Acad Med 2014;89:1100-2.