Peer review for the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia in 2016 and 2017: a retrospective analysis by reviewer and author gender.

Purpose: Our objectives were to analyze the gender of reviewers of all manuscripts submitted to the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia in 2016 and 2017. We hypothesized that the percentage of reviewers who were women would be ≤ 25%, an estimate based on the expert opinion estimates of the investigators and much less than the overall proportion of women in medicine.

Methods: Reviewers and authors of manuscripts submitted between 1 January 2016 and 31 December 2017 were coded as "woman", "man", or "unknown gender" according to an internet search of the person's name, address, medical registration, and/or first name.