Diversity begets diversity: Factors contributing to emergency medicine residency gender diversity.

Abstract

Although the number of women entering medical school and emergency medicine (EM) residencies has increased, female physicians are still proportionally underrepresented in EM. The goal of this study was to determine if there was a relationship between resident gender and program leadership gender. A survey of residency leadership and residents was completed, and multivariate factor analysis was performed. It was found that 31% of program directors (PDs) were women, along with 42% of associate PDs, 48% of assistant PDs, 36% of residents, and 48% of chief residents. The strongest correlation between female residents and program leadership was between female residents and female assistant PDs (0.25). Female residents were also strongly correlated with female chief residents (0.40). Although we cannot determine the direction of causation, moving forward, programs looking to increase their female resident cohort should consider focusing efforts around increasing representation at the program leadership and chief resident level.