Abstract
BackgroundAlthough the status of women in anesthesiology has advanced by many measures, obtaining career development funding remains challenging. Here, we sought to compare the characteristics of funded career development awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) between the specialties of anesthesiology and surgery. We hypothesized that the two groups differ in percentage of faculty with awards, gender distribution among principal investigators, as well as the number of awards promoting diversity.MethodsThe NIH grant-funding database RePORT was queried for career development awards for the years 2006–2016 using the filters “Anesthesiology” and “Surgery.” Grants were characterized based on the gender of the principal investigator and whether the funding opportunity announcement indicated promotion of underrepresented minorities (URM). The 2016 Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) report on “Distribution of U.S. Medical School Faculty by Sex and Rank” was used to adjust comparisons according to baseline gender distributions in anesthesiology and surgery departments. Cohorts were characterized using descriptive methods and compared using Chi-square or Fisher’s exact test.ResultsBased on our AAMC data query, in 2016, the number of women faculty members at the instructor or assistant professor level in U.S. medical schools was 2314 (41%) for anesthesiology and 2281 (30%) for surgery. Between 2006 and 2016, there were 88 career development grants awarded to investigators in anesthesiology departments compared to 261 in surgery departments. Of the grantees in each specialty, 29 (33%) were women in anesthesiology and 72 (28%) in surgery (P = 0.344). Awards to promote URM were identified for two grants (2%) in anesthesiology and nine grants (3%) in surgery (P = 0.737). Faculty members in surgery were more likely to receive an award than in anesthesiology (P < 0.0001), and women were less likely to receive an award than men (P = 0.026).ConclusionsThe major difference between US anesthesiology and surgery departments is that the number of faculty career development awards is significantly higher in surgery departments. Future efforts should aim to identify the reasons for such differences in order to inform strategies that can improve the likelihood for junior faculty members to receive career development funding.
Highlights
The status of women in anesthesiology has advanced by many measures, obtaining career development funding remains challenging
In the time period between 2006 and 2016, we identified 88 career development grants awarded to investigators in anesthesiology departments compared to 261 in surgery departments
Awards to promote underrepresented minorities (URM) were identified for two grants (2%) in the anesthesiology cohort and nine grants (3%) in the surgery cohort (P = 0.737, Fisher’s Exact test)
Summary
The status of women in anesthesiology has advanced by many measures, obtaining career development funding remains challenging. Leaders in the field have called for improvement in academic development opportunities for trainees and junior faculty members [2, 3] Professional societies such as the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER), the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS), and the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation (APSF) have committed substantial resources to provide research funding to young investigators in the specialty of anesthesiology [4,5,6]. In his 2015 Rovenstine Lecture “Without Science There Is Little Art in Anesthesiology” at the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ annual meeting, Eisenach highlighted the ongoing critical importance of supporting young investigators in anesthesiology [7]. The reasons for this lack of improvement were not clear
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