Award Recipients for Pediatric Gastroenterology: A Descriptive Analysis of Gender Distribution.

Society awards are an important component of recognition in medicine and for career advancement such as promotion. Multiple studies conducted in pediatrics and gastroenterology have shown underrepresentation of women awardees even in fields with a higher proportion of women than men. To our knowledge, no such studies have been conducted in pediatric gastroenterology. We hypothesized that among all recipients, women would be underrepresented when compared to men and that women were more likely to be given teaching awards compared to other career achievement awards. We collected data on recipients of major recognition award presented by The North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition from 1987 to 2022. We found that 80.90% of the awards had been given to men and that most nominators were men. This study highlights inequities in women recipients for major awards and presents an opportunity for a call for action to examine and address the factors contributing to this gender inequity.

Single Balloon-assisted Colonoscopy for Placement of Colonic Manometry Catheters: Initial Experience in Children.

OBJECTIVES: Colonic manometry is used frequently in children with long standing and difficult to manage constipation to aid in management decisions. Accurate analysis requires placement of the colonic manometry catheter in the colon without looping. This is technically difficult due to the long-standing nature of the constipation in most patients leading to sigmoid and other colonic redundancy. Single balloon colonoscopy has been successfully used in adult in cases of difficult colonoscopy. We report the first series of single balloon-assisted colonoscopy for performing difficult colonoscopy in children and placing colonic manometry catheters. METHODS: Retrospective chart review was performed to identify patients undergoing the procedure. All patients had prior preparation with nasogastric golytely. RESULTS: Using the single balloon technique, 36 patients underwent placement of the colonic manometry catheter (ages ranging from 3 to 16 years, weights 12 to 95 kg). Catheter placement was successful in all cases with procedure times of 20 to 105 minutes. No major complications were noted. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first reported series of using single balloon-assisted colonoscopy to perform difficult colonoscopy in children and place colonic manometry catheters. It may have other therapeutic implications in children such as removal of polyps or placement of similar catheters.