Taking Some Unnatural Steps: "Improvements to Complex Systems Do Not Occur Naturally"

Abstract

Dr. Pato is Professor of Psychiatry at SUNY-UMU in Syracuse, the Chair of the APA Corresponding Committee on Research Training, and the Chair of the NPTC Task Force on Research Literacy. Address correspondence to Dr. Pato, ACOS Education Washington, DC-VAMC, Department of Psychiatry, 750 East Adams St., Syracuse, NY 13210; michelepato@mac.com (E-mail). Copyright 2004 Academic Psychiatry. Over the last few decades, women have become a more significant and increasing portion of the psychiatric workforce. As Bickel reports in this special issue of Academic Psychiatry, women graduating from psychiatric residencies and working in university psychiatry departments now constitute 37% of the trainees and faculty (1). Despite our increased numbers, however, we have not “naturally” progressed into positions of leadership and mentorship to the academic and research arenas of psychiatry. The national averages show that only 11% of women have progressed to full professor, comparedwith 31% of men in medicine in general. In psychiatry, the statistics are similarly disconcerting, 8% of women have achieved full professor compared with 26% of men. Bickel takes us to task as a professionwhen shewrites “psychiatry. . . not realizing the full value of it’s women professionals may be considered both poor stewardship and bad business” (1).