Update on women in sport and exercise medicine leadership in the USA

Abstract

A series of publications over the last several years has highlighted the underrepresentation of women in multiple sectors of sport and exercise medicine (SEM). The overall number of women SEM physicians in the USA is about 27.5%, which remains disproportionally low compared with the number of women both in (37.1%) and entering (47.1%) medicine, with continued gaps in the number of women represented in societal and academic leadership as well as in head team physician roles.1 2 This editorial provides an update about women in sports medicine leadership, highlights the large discrepancy in elite team physician roles and suggests innovative steps to improve under-representation. There have been positive advances for women representation in academic leadership. The percentage of women sports medicine fellowship programme directors is about equal to the number of women in SEM, and there is no significant difference in academic rank between men and women.3 In academic societies, women account for 28.1% of all current or past presidents of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM) and 20.8% of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). Notably, in the last 15 years, there have been 10 women AMSSM presidents and 7 women ACSM presidents. However, women still make up smaller percentages of SEM editorial boards and senior editor or editor-in-chief positions of sports medicine journals.3 …