Sticky Floor, Broken Ladder, and Glass Ceiling in Academic Obstetrics and Gynecology in the United States and Canada.

Katherine Y Kim,Ahmad B Wazzan,Faisal Khosa,Emily L Kearsley,Laura Hopkins,John P Walsh,Mehr Jain,Hsin Yun Yang

doi:10.7759/cureus.22535

Abstract

ObjectiveTo evaluate the gender proportion in academic obstetrics and gynecology faculty across the United States and Canada and further assess any gender differences in academic ranks, leadership positions, and research productivity.MethodsObstetrics and gynecology programs were searched from the Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database (FREIDA) (n=145) and the Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS) (n=13) to compile a database of gender and academic profiles of faculty physicians with Medical Doctorate (MD) or Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) degrees. Elsevier's Scopus was used to gather individual research metrics for analysis, and the data were analyzed using Strata v14.2 (StataCorp. 2015. Stata Statistical Software: Release 14. College Station, TX: StataCorp LP).ResultsAmong 3556 American and 689 Canadian Obstetrics and Gynaecology physicians, women comprised 60.9% and 61.4%, respectively. Among physicians with professorships, women physicians comprised 36.2% and 35.8% in the United States and Canada, respectively. When examining the gender proportion of physicians in leadership roles, women comprised 52.2% and 56.1% in the United States and Canada, respectively. The h-index between men and women physicians showed a significant difference overall in both the United States (p<0.001) and Canada (p<0.001), indicating that men have higher academic output.ConclusionAlthough the overall proportion of women academic staff physicians in Obstetrics and Gynaecology is higher than the proportion of men, there are more men who had a full professor rank. Men also had higher academic productivity.

Highlights

Over the last two decades, there have been deliberate efforts to bring about equity, diversity, and inclusion in academic medicine
We looked at the proportion of men versus women physicians in leadership roles
The current professors entered the workforce when men predominated the medical school matriculants and the physician workforce. This is supported by the fact that the gender proportion at lower academic ranks is more similar to the current overall gender proportion of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (OB/GYN) staff in total

Summary

Introduction

Over the last two decades, there have been deliberate efforts to bring about equity, diversity, and inclusion in academic medicine. Studies have shown that women physicians are still underrepresented in academic or leadership positions in various specialties and their professional organizations such as radiology [3,4,5,6,7], cardiology [8], and neurosurgery [9]. These studies found an association with women physicians having less research productivity and lower h-indices, which suggests that gender bias in academic research is a factor intrinsically associated with gender bias in medical academia. This proportion is on the rise, with women physicians comprising the majority of younger physicians in this specialty, with 62 women medical graduates in Canada matching to OB/GYN in 2017 as opposed to nine men medical graduates [12]

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Discussion

Conclusion