STS Policy for Respectful Scholarly Discourse

Proposed standards of acceptable behaviors were established in advance of the 2023 STS Annual Meeting. These recommendations were reviewed, revised, and updated in June of 2024 and approved formally as The STS Policy for Scholarly Discourse, as follows:

  1. Moderators should enforce punctuality and do so equitably. 

  2. Moderators should ensure that they are familiar with the correct phonetic pronunciation and preferred pronouns for all presenters and participants in advance of introductions.

  3. Moderators should promote engagement by having questions prepared in advance for all speakers, in the event that the audience does not have questions. They should be prepared to discuss all presentations in the session equitably.

  4. Moderators should seek a breadth of opinions if the discussion becomes controversial. 

  5. Moderators, speakers, discussants, and panelists should address all attendees with doctorate degrees as Dr. <Last Name>.  Those without doctorate degrees shall be addressed as Mr. or Ms. <Last Name>. 

    1. This applies regardless of the speaker’s personal relationship with the person being addressed, whether they are partners, previous collaborators, trained together, etc. 

    2. These expectations hold true regardless of the relative academic ranks or perceived status of the speaker and the individual being addressed. 

  6. When discussing broad concepts and roles, it is imperative that speakers, discussants, and panelists avoid gendered language. 

    1. For example, if the discussion surrounds the intraoperative steps that should be taken by a surgeon, the educational activities of a trainee, or the administrative responsibilities of a Chair or Program Director, etc., it is important to avoid the use of gender-specific pronouns. 

  7. When addressing patient groups, respectful terminology should be used by speakers, discussants, and panelists. This is accomplished by avoiding the practice of referring to patients by their diagnoses, their race, their sex, their smoking status, or their treatment response:

    Examples of preferred language choices 

Examples of less respectful language

Preferred approach

First name

Dr Last Name or Mr/Ms Last Name (if no doctorate degree)

Subject

Patient/Person/Participant

Smoker

Person who smokes/smoked

Diabetic

Patient with diabetes

Mutants

Patient with tumor harboring mutation

Non-compliant

Unable to

Patient failed

Treatment was ineffective

Patient progressed

Disease progressed

Intravenous drug users

Patients who inject drugs

  1. Speakers should be aware of their allotted time and allocate their content appropriately, such that they are well prepared to complete their presentations on time. 
     

It should be noted that the STS also has an established Policy on STS Educational Activities for Presenters and Moderators (https://www.sts.org/policy-sts-educational-activities-presenters-and-moderators), which distinctly focuses more on the educational and clinical content of presentations, rather than upon professionalism behaviors.

 

(Adopted by the STS Executive Committee on August 7, 2024)