According to new findings published in, interventional cardiologists leave their practice much more frequently than men JAMA Cardiology(1) In addition, the authors found that women in interventional cardiology were more likely to discontinue treatment than women in general cardiology, general gastroenterology, or interventional gastroenterology.

“Women remain underrepresented in interventional cardiology, comprising only 5% of practicing interventionalists,” wrote lead author Sarah Kathrine Gualano, MD, an interventional cardiologist at the University of Michigan, and colleagues. “Women in training are less likely to pursue fellowships in interventional cardiology. Less well-described are the career trajectories of women in interventional cardiology and how these compare to other procedural areas.”

Gualano et al. tracked Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) data from 2013 to 2020 to identify and track active specialists in various specialties. For this study, specialists were defined as active in a given year if they cared for 10 or more Medicare FFS beneficiaries.

In total, the group identified 8,488 interventional cardiologists, 22,880 general cardiologists, nearly 3,416 interventional gastroenterologists, and 12,725 general gastroenterologists who were active from 2013 to 2020. The proportion of women among physicians in interventional cardiology was 4.1%, lower than the proportion in general cardiology (17.6%), interventional gastroenterology (6.4%), or general gastroenterology (19.8%).