Q&A: Women more likely to leave academic medicine; issue 'needs a systemic solution'
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Key takeaways:
- The 5-year attrition rate from academia was 32.4% for men and 38.3% for women.
- The lead researcher spoke with Healio about what should be done to help keep women in academic medicine.
Women were more likely than men to leave academic medicine at all career stages, highlighting the need for diversity, equity and inclusion efforts that target recruiting and retaining female physicians, according to an expert.
Because keeping female physicians in academic health care is crucial in serving the needs of diverse patient populations, Ya-Wen Chen, MD, MPH, an instructor of surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and colleagues conducted a cohort study to investigate differences in the rates of leaving academia between female and male physicians.
The study included 294,963 physicians, 69.5% of whom were men. The researchers found that, from 2014 to 2019, the overall attrition rate from academia was 34.2%. When broken down by gender, it was 32.4% for men and 38.3% women (OR = 1.25; 95% CI, 1.23-1.28).
Healio spoke with Chen to learn more about the study results, what can be done to keep women in academic medicine and more.
Healio: Why did you decide to research this subject?
Chen: Academic medical centers (AMC) are crucial for training future physicians and treating future patients. Physicians in AMC usually are expected to have a triple mission: patient care, teaching and research. Workforce diversity in AMC, therefore, ensures diverse viewpoints in research for all patient populations and sufficient role models for future physicians.
Female physicians have been found to receive unequal work opportunities compared with male physicians. This is one of a series of our works trying to combat this gender inequality. This topic is especially important because most people were focused on the pipeline issue, meaning ensuring enough female medical students or residents enter medical school and AMC. However, we found that female physicians were more likely to leave AMC than male physicians, meaning that even if we had enough women initially, we still had fewer women in the end. This is a waste of resources for society if we fail to retain these talented women, and it's unfortunate for patients. We need to solve both pipeline and leaking issues.
Healio: Will you briefly describe your findings and their importance?
Chen: We found that female physicians are more likely to leave AMC than male physicians. And this happens in many different aspects. This happens at all career stages, in all regions of the country, in both surgical and nonsurgical specialties.
Our finding suggests that this is a nationwide issue that is happening everywhere. This is a systemic issue and can’t be solved by individual female physicians. There are not enough female leaders to guide and support female physicians, and the historic work composition, promotion and payment systems have not been adapted to meet the needs of female physicians.
Healio: What can be done to help keep women in academic medicine?
Chen: We believe that AMC leaders need to examine work composition, compensation and promotion systems for inequities and then create actions to mitigate those inequities.
Healio: What should primary care physicians take away from the study?
Chen: This is not a failing or laziness on the part of individual physicians, nor does it occur because women are more concerned with child rearing and motherhood than with their careers. This is a systemic problem and needs a systemic solution.
We also want all physicians, women and men, especially those in leadership positions, to realize that they can champion system changes. After reading this study, they are now aware of the problem, and they can be part of a solution for their institution.
Healio: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Chen: With the physician shortage projected to reach 124,000 physicians by 2034, interventions to retain physicians, especially female physicians, are crucially needed.