From leadership research to district action: Diversity Trends in the United States Surgical Society Leadership From 1980 to 2025

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide. Proposed district actions are separate from the original authors’ findings and recommendations. Independent peer review of this guide is not asserted.

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Evidence and transfer

Education-related source: verify which participants, institutions and outcomes were actually studied before district adoption. Source publication type: research-article. License and identity checks do not establish study quality or causality.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

Background Physicians from underrepresented groups in medicine have historically been less likely to enter surgical specialties. This project sought to evaluate changes in the demographics of surgical society leadership from 1980 to 2025. Methodology In total, 31 societies were included in this retrospective analysis, and data on age, sex, and ethnicity were gathered and analyzed using SPSS. Results There was a significant increase in the number of female presidents and non-White presidents in the 2010-2025 period compared to 1980-1995. The Association for Academic Surgery (AAS), American Society of Breast Surgeons, and the Association for Surgical Education all had more female presidents than average, while the American Urological Association had fewer. AAS and the Surgical Society of the Alimentary Tract both had more non-White presidents than other societies. The American Pediatric Surgical Association and Western Surgical Association presidents were significantly older, while the AAS, American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons, EAST Trauma Society, Midwestern Surgical Society, and Society for University Surgeons presidents were significantly younger than the overall median age. Conclusions Many surgical societies have improved their representation of women and non-White surgeons. These significant changes in representation signify an appreciation for the demographic changes in the United States within the past 45 years.

Study methods

This was a retrospective study evaluating the demographics of presidents of surgical societies from 1980 to 2025. This time period was chosen to provide enough historical depth to meaningfully observe change while minimizing incomplete data. Surgical societies that were included comprised flagship national societies, subspecialty societies, and regional societies. The inclusion criteria for any given society were that they represented general or subspecialty surgery, maintained publicly available data dating to at least the early 1980s, and had a clearly defined presidential role. President-elects for the 2025-2026 term were included to account for all societies that had elections in 2025 and had either a president who had begun their tenure or were soon to start. Both regional and national societies were included to ensure as broad a geographic scope as possible. In total, 31 societies were included, encompassing societies with large membership bases, visibility in academia, and sustained activity.

Limitations

Throughout the data collection process, it was difficult to obtain demographic information (particularly age) about the various past presidents. Some data points were excluded from this analysis because society websites did not list presidents for particular years, and the ages of some presidents could not be found. Although information was not captured from the societies themselves, information was still gathered from official society websites. While this was the only possibility for this project due to the lack of response to study coordinators, it may have introduced confounds into the data. It is also necessary to recognize that this is not a comprehensive analysis of all surgical societies, nor does it capture all levels of leadership, many of which may have also changed in the included time frame. The decision to focus solely on presidents was made to ensure as complete a dataset as possible, but ultimately resulted in the omission of possible trends for other positions, such as executive committees.

A 90-day district inquiry

Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
Days 16–30 · Design. Choose one recurring leadership practice described in the source. Map its participants, incentives and constraints to a district setting, then design a small reversible staff pilot with an accountable owner. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
Days 61–90 · Decide. Record implementation fidelity, staff review time, task quality and unintended burdens against a baseline. Use a comparison team where feasible and document alternative explanations before expanding. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

Ashwin Govindan; Ari Ettleson; Justin M Robbins; Peter Ekeh; Anil Hingorani. Diversity Trends in the United States Surgical Society Leadership From 1980 to 2025. Cureus (2026-01-11). https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.101311

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.