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Findings
and Recommendations: Women in the Physician Workforce
Although women physicians are increasing in numbers, they are not gaining as rapidly in positions of leadership, in certain specialties, and in research opportunities. Gender bias, family responsibilities, and societal perceptions create barriers to women's progress in the medical profession. Institutions need to support the advancement of women and maintain flexible policies that will enable them to participate in activities that will foster their personal and professional development and to contribute to the practice of medicine.
Findings
- The projected eightfold increase between 1970 and 2010 in the number of women entering the medical profession will increasingly affect all aspects of medical education, research, and practice.
- Women physicians remain underrepresented among the leaders in medicine.
- Women physicians tend to select a relatively limited number of medical specialties as their areas of practice. The reasons for this clustering have not been fully delineated.
- Physician gender has little impact on workforce forecasting.
- Gender bias, a reflection of society's value system, remains the single greatest deterrent to women achieving their full potential in every aspect of the medical profession and is a barrier throughout the professional life cycle.
Recommendations
- Medical schools and academic health centers should be encouraged to stimulate interest in medical careers among talented girls through specific outreach programs, starting in the early elementary school years with increasing emphasis through high school and into the junior year in college.
- Medical schools, academic health centers, and professional societies for physicians should develop explicit programs of leadership development for women physicians. This should include a mentoring process for students, residents, fellows, and union faculty members.
- Because most institutional leadership positions are filled by men, it is critical that these male leaders take an active role in creating opportunities that groom potential future female replacements.
- Female physicians should receive the same compensation as male physicians for the same work. To ensure this happens, salaries should be analyzed at specific internals based on gender.
- Current and expanded efforts to increase the training of women and their participation in both basic and clinical medical research should be supported.
- Optional alternative career paths that do not foreclose tenure or advancement should be provided without pejorative labels. At a minimum, maternity and childrearing leave should be excluded form the time limits for eligibility for tenure.
- Eligibility and age requirements for fellowships and other positions should permit gaps in career activity associated with childbearing.
- A national physician workforce commission should continue to monitor the gender ratio in the physician workforce and among the leadership. The commission could be charged with setting goals and assessing progress.
- Implementation of workforce policies should not disproportionately restrict or otherwise impair women's access to any aspect of the medical profession.
- Previous COGME recommendations are not intended to limit disproportionately the opportunities for women in subspecialty care. Workforce policies aimed at decreasing the number of residency positions and increasing the proportion of residency positions in primary care should be monitored for their impact on women physicians.
- All medical schools, academic health centers, and residency and fellowship programs should have explicit procedures for providing education about gender bias and for assuring accountability to the principle of equal opportunity, compensation, and advancement for women.
- Perceptions of bias against women and their work should be minimized by instituting simple blinding mechanisms such as authorless review of scientific papers and grant applications.
- Medical schools, academic health centers, and residency programs must openly report cases of sexual harassment and have an explicit process for changing behavior.
- Educational, training, and work schedules should be flexible. women and men have personal and family responsibilities that may interfere with a rigid program Each medical and osteopathic school should examine its policies in this matter. The Liaison Committee on Medical Education and the American Osteopathic Association should consider modifying their standards to reflect the value of this accommodation to the educational accomplishments of its students and faculty. Flexibility should also be encouraged by Residency Review Committees and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.
- Medical education and graduate medical education programs should have appropriate and explicit family leave policies and provide or ensure access to high-quality dependent care for physicians and other faculty, students, and staff. Academic medicine should make available less-than-full-time options and flexible work schedules to accommodate childrearing and create a model for career-long opportunities to balance the professional and personal lives of women physicians.
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