Abstract
BackgroundWomen physicians continue to comprise the minority of leadership roles in Academic Family Medicine (AFM) faculty across North American medical schools. Our study quantified the current state of gender disparity by analyzing academic position, leadership ranking, and research productivity.MethodsWe generated a database for 6,746 AFM faculty members. Gender and academic profiles were obtained for 2,892 academic ranks and 1,706 leadership roles by searching faculty listings enlisted in Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database (FREIDA) and Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS). To measure research productivity, we obtained bibliometric data: h-index, citations, and tenure from 2,383 faculty members using Elsevier’s SCOPUS archives. Data analysis and h-index were formulated using Stata version 14.2 (StataCorp LP, College Station, TX).ResultsOur results indicated that women hold 46.11% (3,110/6,746) of faculty positions. The proportional composition decreased with increasing academic ranking (49.84% assistant, 46.78% associate, and 41.5% full professor). The same decreasing trend was demonstrated with leadership rank (57.14% minor leadership, 47.65% second-in-command, and 36.61 first-in-command). Compared to their gender counterparts, women in AFM demonstrated lower publication productivity as measured by citation number (p=0.04) and years of study (p=0.008). The final prediction equation model after multivariable analyses included gender, publications, citations, country of graduation, and years of active research (p<0.05).ConclusionsThe composition of academic family medicine faculty members included in this study demonstrated gender disparity. Inclusivity initiatives and policies to tackle the issue of female retention, promotion, and recruitment need to be further explored.
Highlights
Women are entering North American medical schools in greater numbers compared to their male counterparts [1]
Women physicians continue to comprise the minority of leadership roles in Academic Family Medicine (AFM) faculty across North American medical schools
Gender and academic profiles were obtained for 2,892 academic ranks and 1,706 leadership roles by searching faculty listings enlisted in Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database (FREIDA) and Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS)
Summary
Women are entering North American medical schools in greater numbers compared to their male counterparts [1]. With awareness of gender equality, AFM leads in diversity of medical school faculty with fourfold growth of 1,396 positions held by women 30 years ago to 5,507 positions in 2015 [3]. Despite these changes, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) published that only 39.5% of faculty positions in US medical schools were held by women in 2016 [4]. Women physicians continue to comprise the minority of leadership roles in Academic Family Medicine (AFM) faculty across North American medical schools. Our study quantified the current state of gender disparity by analyzing academic position, leadership ranking, and research productivity
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