Historically, the Association of Program Directors in Surgery (APDS) has purposely improved the diversity and inclusion of the organization's leadership. However, the APDS has yet to explore the diversity and inclusion of our annual meeting. Many studies have demonstrated that inclusive organizational behavior improves member engagement and retention, organizational reputation, innovation, and financial performance.1, 2, 3 Organizational inclusive behavior refers to actions and attitudes that foster a diverse, inclusive, and equitable organization. This behavior can help create a sense of belonging, respect, and appreciation for all members. APDS has 5 stated purposes for the organization, and the annual conference is where we demonstrate our organizational purpose. How a professional organization delivers its annual conference is buoyed by its membership, leadership, bylaws, and processes. Unintended biases in any of these components will impact organizational participation. A participation analysis is necessary to understand if the APDS has unintentional biases that affect member participation in the annual conference.

Organizational diversity goes beyond gender and ethnicity, also program affiliation is a form diversity for most professional organization. Why is it important to know if our designated organizational diverse populations participate meaningfully at our annual meeting? Promoting inclusion in scholarly meetings is vital given academic professional organizations’ pivotal role, potentially disrupting inequalities in the broader discipline. We hold meetings, workshops, and conferences throughout the year that will provide professional capital by offering networking opportunities, exposure, and scholarly activity for their curriculum vitae.4 At these meetings, medical students, residents, fellows, and early career faculty can showcase their work, get expert feedback, and establish mentors. Also, at these meetings, some degree of professional cultural modeling occurs about how the organization works by making evident the expectations and values of the organization.5 These understandings emerge and are reproduced at the micro and macro levels at our conference through, for instance, the diversity of presenters, the research/discussion topics, and even conference themes. It is reasonable to argue that how these meetings unfold potentially affects participants’ cultural models, including their feelings of belonging, which likely support or discourage their retention.6 The authors borrow Dewsbury and Brame's operationalization of inclusivity, defining it as “the practice of including people across differences” that “implies an intentional practice of recognizing and working to mitigate biases that lead to marginalization or exclusion of some people.”7

The authors performed this study to determine if, historically, the diverse organizational affiliated groups within the APDS participated in the meaningful or impactful portions of the annual conference compared to their membership population. Another aim is to determine the diversity of the topics discussed during the meaningful, impactful portion of the annual conference. The diversity of topics serves as a surrogate for inclusivity, and to ensure the meaningful portions of the annual conference are relevant to all organizational affiliated groups.