EP 67: Guidelines, Inequality and Moving the Needle with Dr Devesh Rai and Dr Martha Gulati

Parallax by Ankur Kalra

“There is a significant disparity in the inclusion of women on all national guideline committees, in addition to serving as a chair of cardiology guidelines. Further advocacy is required to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion in our cardiology guidelines globally.” Rai D, et al. JAHA. 22 Why are we talking about inclusion, diversity, and equity? Recent years have seen many studies on the inequalities in representation of women in cardiology and yet the needle has not been moved as much as we hoped for. What does the data on the authorship of the guidelines tell us and what can be done to balance the scale? Dr Ankur Kalra’s guests this week are Dr Martha Gulati, internationally recognized cardiologist specializing in Women and Heart Disease, Heart Disease Prevention and Dr Devesh Rai, first year cardiology fellow at Rochester General Hospital. In this insightful and action-oriented episode Dr Gulati, chair of the recent 2021 AHA/ACC/ASE/CHEST/SAEM/SCCT/SCMR Guideline for the Evaluation and Diagnosis of Chest Pain, talks about the guideline development process and the factors that can dictate the questions of representations and the integration of the latest findings. Next, Dr Rai shares insights from a recent study that compared gender differences in the authorship of the US, Canadian, and European Cardiology Guidelines From 2006 to 2020. Dr Kalra invites Dr Gulati and Dr Rai to share their take on how progress can be achieved through advocacy and what are the facts we can build on. Read the full paper here: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/epub/10.1161/JAHA.121.024249 Questions and comments can be sent to “[e-mail]” and may be answered by Ankur in the next episode. Guests, @DrMarthaGulati & @DeveshRaiMDhosted by @AnkurKalraMD. Produced by @RadcliffeCARDIO.