Women achieve equity in allergy training, faculty positions
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Key takeaways:
- 68.3% of current fellows were women.
- 55% of current programs had a woman director.
- 61.8% of division chiefs were men.
There is a high percentage of women in allergy training and a nearly even split of men and women among academic faculty and program directors in allergy, according to a letter published in Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.
“As a woman in academic medicine, I frequently have conversations with both trainees and with senior mentors about the state of gender disparities in the medical field,” Monica T. Kraft, MD, assistant professor, division of allergy and immunology, department of otolaryngology, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, told Healio.
“We have made significant advancements, particularly in allergy and immunology, but it is important to periodically reassess the current state of the specialty,” she continued.
Disparities remain between men and women among division leadership, Kraft and colleague Casey T. Kraft, MD, plastic and reconstructive surgeon, Cosmetic and Plastic Surgery of Columbus, wrote in their study.
The pair examined 81 programs that were listed on the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology website including publicly available online information about their fellows, faculty and leadership.
At the end of the 2022 academic year, these programs included 43 (53.1%) that offered complete data on their institutional website, 36 (44.4%) with partial data available and two (2.5%) with no available data.
Also, 56 programs (69.1%) had information about their fellows on their websites. The 246 identified fellows were 31.7% men and 68.3% women. The 63 programs (77.8%) with clearly identifiable faculty had a split of 45.9% men and 54.1% women.
The researchers could not identify six program directors (7.4%) or 10 division chiefs (12.3%) via the programs’ websites or by direct contact. But the researchers did find 34 men (45%) who were program or fellowship directors and 41 women (55%) who were directors.
Further, the researchers found 45 men (61.6%) and 28 women (38.4%) who were division chiefs, including two programs (2.5%) that had chiefs for pediatrics and for adult allergy.
The researchers called the majority of women trainees in allergy reassuring as women continue to enter the field, noting previous research indicating an increase in women who were active allergy and asthma physicians from 30.2% in 2010 to 43.1% in 2021.
The finding that women comprised more than half of the faculty members in allergy training programs and in fellowship program directorships also suggested that women trainees will continue to see allergy and asthma as a viable career opportunity, the researchers continued.
The researchers attributed how allergy and asthma has achieved equal sex distribution before many other specialties to considerations of work/life balance in the field and to the visibility of women as presidents of the AAAAI and the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.
“Allergy and immunology is a primarily outpatient clinical specialty with few emergencies, which allows for more control over practice schedule and personal time available for family, leisure activities and other nonprofessional interests,” Kraft said.
“As women often take on more household and child-rearing responsibilities, work/life balance may be an important consideration in selecting a medical specialty,” she continued.
However, the researchers said, the minority of division chiefs who were women indicated that room for improvement remains in leadership positions as well as in opportunities for mentorship that would lead to these positions.
“Allergy and immunology is a field that is often touted as a field with fewer gender disparities than other historically male-dominated fields, such as certain surgical subspecialties,” Kraft said.
“While we were encouraged at the high percentage of women allergy trainees and near even split of male/female academic faculty and program leadership, it is clear that the highest levels of division and department leadership lags behind,” she continued.
The researchers suggested that inequity in research may drive these trends, since many division chiefs may reflect faculty who are focused on research whereas clinician educators typically take on program directorship roles.
Awareness and quantification of these issues are important factors in advancing sex equity, the researchers said, as are improvements in mentorship, visibility in leadership positions, dedicated funding and improved opportunities.
“Though not the primary objective of the study, another surprising aspect was that a large proportion (up to half) of training programs evaluated did not maintain updated information on fellows, faculty and leadership roles on their websites,” Kraft said.
Kraft called studies such as this an important step in bringing awareness to the issue of gender inequalities as they quantify the current breakdown in the field.
“Improved mentorship through dedicated leadership programs, academic funding and other opportunities are important steps to bridge the gap,” she added.
Other specialties can replicate the progress that allergy and immunology has made, Kraft said.
“All specialties have unique aspects of clinical responsibility, training requirements and culture that can contribute to differences in proportions of women in the field,” Kraft said. “However, the suggestions previously mentioned of improved mentorship and dedicated programming to foster women leaders are broadly applicable.”
For more information:
Monica T. Kraft, MD, can be reached at monica.kraft@osumc.edu.