188 Does Sex Bias Impact Faculty Clinical Teaching Awards?

Abstract

Recently, the implications of sex bias for female trainees has taken a prominent place in graduate medical education (GME) research and discussions. However, there is a relative lack of research addressing sex bias in how female faculty are evaluated by their trainees. Teaching awards are given at many residency programs to recognize excellence in teaching. These awards not only offer prestige but are an essential component of academic promotions. Research suggests that women are underrepresented in the recipients of many professional medical association awards and in awards given to medical school faculty. Our objective is to determine whether women are underrepresented in teaching awards honorees in a single Emergency Medicine Residency. We assessed whether there is a discrepancy between female and male faculty clinical teaching award honorees and the overall representation of women in the teaching faculty at a single Emergency Medicine (EM) program. The Regions Hospital Emergency Medicine Program is a 3-year EM Program with 9-11 residents per class over the past 10 years.. Two yearly teaching awards are presented to clinical teaching faculty, based on evaluations from EM residents and on nominations from rotating medical students. We collected data on the sex of the recipient of each award and reviewed the female-to-male ratio of recipients between 2009 and 2018 (table 1). During that same time period, the percentage of female clinical teaching faculty averaged 31.9%. We found there is a discrepancy between the proportion of women who received a clinical teaching award based on evaluations by learners when compared with the proportion of women faculty: 23.1% of awards were given to women when compared with a teaching faculty averaging 31.9% women. Also, the discrepancy between the percentage of resident-selected teaching awards given to women and percentage of female faculty (28.6% vs 31.9%) was less than that of student-selected awards (16.7% vs 31.9%). In a single Emergency Medicine Residency Program, there is a discrepancy between the percentage of women EM faculty who receive clinical teaching awards and the overall percentage of female faculty who are eligible for the award, despite whether the award is chosen by EM residents or medical students. Sex bias may play a role in determining teaching award recipients in our department over the past 10 years.