Abstract
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is an Islamic monarchy and was established in 1932. Saudi women first entered the medical field in 1975 and the country has since seen a steady increase in women pursuing medicine. However, there is limited data on gender related issues for women doctors practicing in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, our study objective was to assess the perception amongst peers regarding gender equality and social issues faced by women doctors in Saudi Arabia. An online anonymous cross-sectional survey was administered in English to doctors at King Khalid Hospital, affiliated to King Saud University, in Riyadh, between April and May of 2016. Of 1015 doctors, 304 (30%) participated, of which 129 (42.4%) were females and 231 (76%) were Saudi nationals. The average age was 32.4 years (±SD: 8.7). The majority opined that there was no gender discrimination in salaries (73.7% p-value = 0.4), hospital benefits (62.2% p-value = 0.06) or entry into any field of Medicine/Pediatrics (68.4% p-value = 0.207). However, only a minority believed that there was no gender discrimination for entry into surgery (37.3% p-value = .091). A higher proportion of male doctors agreed that promotion opportunities are equal (66.3% vs 45.7%, p-value = 0.002). However, of 54 consultants, only 18 (33.3%) were women. Over half of the women (52.3%) reported that they never wear the face veil. Only a minority of male and female doctors (12.2%) believed women doctors should wear the veil since they examine male patients. Fewer respondents believed that female doctors face harassment from male doctors (14.5%) whereas 30.7% believed female doctors face harassment from male patients. More females, than males, agreed with the statement that female doctors are as committed to their careers as are males (92.2% vs 67.4%, p-value<0.0001). Of 304 participants, 210 (69.1%) said that they would still choose to become a doctor with approximately equal proportions between males and females (68% vs 70.5%, p-value = 0.79). In conclusion, our survey of male and female doctors at a government university hospital in Saudi Arabia revealed that the majority believed there was gender equality amongst doctors in terms of salaries, benefits, opportunities for promotion and entry into any field of medicine or pediatrics, but not surgery. However, there were significantly fewer women at consultant positions, a deficiency that needs to be addressed.
Highlights
Since this influx of women in the medical field in Saudi Arabia is a relatively recent development, our study objective was to survey the opinion of doctors regarding gender equality and social issues faced by women doctors and to further assess differences in perception between male and female doctors
Our survey shows that regardless of gender or nationality, the majority of participants were of the opinion that there was gender equality amongst doctors in terms of salaries, benefits, duty hours, performance evaluations and opportunities for promotion
[32] The Saudi Ministry of Civil Affairs mandates a fixed pay scale according to the professional level, years of experience, and nationality for all government doctors, irrespective of gender. [33, 34] Our results for gender parity in pay could be extrapolated to Government doctors throughout Saudi Arabia
Summary
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), established in 1932, is the largest Arab state. [1] It is an Islamic monarchy with a population of over 30 million, two-thirds of which are Saudi nationals. [2, 3] The World Economic Forum’s 2016 Global Gender Gap Report has ranked Saudi Arabia 141 out of 144 countries for gender parity. [4] In 2015, Saudi women constituted only 13% of the native work force. [5] the number of employed Saudi women with professional careers is increasing, made possible by free education and rapid expansion of institutes of higher education. [6,7,8,9] These include King Saud University, the country’s first University and medical school and co-incidentally our study site, the Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, the world’s largest women-only university, and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology with the first co-educational campus. [10, 11] Nearly 60% of university graduates in Saudi Arabia are women, and the female youth literacy rate (ages 15–24) is 99.3%. [11,12,13] By 1960, 5% of medical students were women in the United States [14] which increased to nearly 47% in 2014. Teaching hospitals in Saudi Arabia are well funded and doctors follow a western (mostly North American) style of practice, documentation, undergraduate and post-graduate training, performance evaluations and examinations, all of which are conducted in the English language These similarities allow comparison of this Saudi study of gender equality in the medical field with similar studies conducted in western countries over the past two decades. Our study provides an opportunity for the Saudi government to address deficiencies identified, given that at present there is sparse data to guide them Since this influx of women in the medical field in Saudi Arabia is a relatively recent development, our study objective was to survey the opinion of doctors regarding gender equality and social issues faced by women doctors and to further assess differences in perception between male and female doctors
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