Abstract
Background: Despite increasing representation of women in medicine, gender bias remains pervasive. The authors sought to evaluate speaker introductions by gender in the grand rounds of multiple specialties at a large academic institution to understand the cultural context of this behavior and identify predictors of formality. Materials and Methods: The authors reviewed grand rounds recordings of speakers with doctorates presenting to the departments of family medicine, general surgery, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and pediatrics at one institution from 2014 to 2019. The primary outcome was whether a speaker's professional title was used as the first form of address. The authors assessed factors correlated with professional introduction using multivariable logistic regression. Results: Speakers were introduced professionally in 346/615 recordings (56.3%). Female introducers were more likely to introduce speakers professionally (odds ratio [OR]: 2.52). A significant interaction existed between speaker gender and home institution: female speakers visiting from an external institution were less likely than male external speakers to be introduced professionally (OR: 0.49), whereas female speakers internal to the institution were more likely to be introduced professionally than male internal speakers (OR: 1.75). Use of professional titles varied by specialty and was higher than average for family medicine (83.2%), surgery (75.8%), and pediatrics (64.0%) and lower for internal medicine (37.5%) and obstetrics and gynecology (50.7%). Conclusions: These findings suggest a complex relationship between gender and formality of introduction that merits further investigation. Understanding differences in culture across specialties is important to inform efforts to promote equity.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 202-209 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Journal of Women's Health |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 2022 |
Funding
R.J. has stock options as compensation for her advisory board role in Equity Quotient, a company that evaluates culture in health care companies; she has received personal fees from Amgen and Vizient and grants for unrelated work from the National Institutes of Health, the Doris Duke Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, the Komen Foundation, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan for the Michigan Radiation Oncology Quality Consortium. She has a contract to conduct an investigator-initiated study with Genentech. She has served as an expert witness for Sherinian and Hasso and Dressman Benzinger LaVelle. She is an uncompensated founding member of TIME’S UP Healthcare and a member of the Board of Directors of ASCO. M.M.H. is a paid consultant for the American Medical Association and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics. P.E.R. has no disclosures related to this work. Related to other work, he has received both travel support and funding from the Cambia Health Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Hartford Foundation, the Center to Advance Palliative Care, and Compassus Hospice, Palliative Care and Home Health. He has served in multiple volunteer leadership roles with the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, from which he has received travel support only. The other authors have no disclosures to report.
Keywords
- academic medicine
- gender disparities
- professional introduction
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Medicine
