Disparities impact job satisfaction for women mentees, mentors in gastroenterology
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Career advancement and job satisfactory may be affected by the inequities that women mentees and mentors experience in the field of gastroenterology, according to a study published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology.
“Mentorship is deeply important for career advancement in any field,” Loren Galler Rabinowitz, MD, instructor of Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, told Healio Gastroenterology. “Our study found that women mentees in gastroenterology reported more difficulty finding a mentor and cited the inability to identify a mentor of the same gender as a barrier to mentorship. Senior women physicians reported more pressure to serve as mentors, higher rates of burnout, and lower overall job satisfaction when compared to their colleagues, who are men.”
Rabinowitz and colleagues distributed a voluntary, web-based survey to physicians at 20 academic institutions. Of the 796 gastroenterology fellows and faculty who received the survey link, 334 physicians responded to the survey. Of those who responded, 299 (90%; 129 women) completed the mentorship questions and were included in the evaluation. Rabinowitz and colleagues compared responses from men and women.
“Women are looking for other women to mentor them, but reporting challenges, perhaps because 78% of gastroenterologists in the United States are men, despite rising numbers of women joining the field,” Rabinowitz said.
Investigators found that women were more likely than men to prefer a mentor of the same gender (38.6% women vs. 4.2% men; P < .0001); however, less often had a mentor of the same gender (45.5% vs. 70.2%; P < .0001). In addition, women reported more difficulty finding a mentor than men (44.4% vs. 16.0%; P < .0001) and more likely to cite inability to identify a mentor of the same gender as a contributing factor (12.8% vs. 0.9%; P = .0004).
Rabinowitz and colleagues noted more women vs. men felt comfortable advising women mentees about work-life balance (88.3% vs. 63.8%; P = .0005). However, fewer women (33.3%) considered themselves to be effective mentors compared with men (52.6%) (P = .03). More women reported they felt pressured to mentor due to their gender than men (39.5% vs. 0.9%; P < .0001). One-third of physicians who responded reported negative impact of COVID-19 on ability to mentor and be mentors; however, there were no differences between gender.
“Women trainees and junior faculty can find mentorship outside of their field or institution, and can seek out multiple mentors (both men and women) to help guide their careers,” she said. “We also need more women in senior and leadership roles to increase the pool of available mentors. Our male colleagues can help too, by committing to being allies, mentors, and sponsors for us, as so many of them already are!”
Editor’s Note: On September 2, 2021, the article was updated with original comments from Loren Galler Rabinowitz, MD.
Collapse
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts