Chapters authored
Surgical Education: Focus on Gender Equality in Academic Surgery and Related Areas
Despite progress and advancements made to achieve gender equality, a glass ceiling still exists for women in surgery. Women remain largely underrepresented in academic surgery, with appointments to only 18% of surgery program director roles and 6.3% of surgical chair positions in the United States as of 2018. Inequities across various surgical subspecialties are also significant, especially in the areas of neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, otolaryngology, and plastic and reconstructive surgery. Additional barriers exist for women in academics, including lack of high-quality female mentorship, implicit bias within letters of recommendation, and a greater incidence of reported moral injury and burn-out. Further efforts to address these inequities are necessary to retain the talents and contributions of women in surgery. Interventions that may counterbalance the continued gender gap within surgical fields include the implementation of implicit bias training, increasing institutional support, establishing formal mentorship initiatives, the introduction of early exposure programs during medical training, transparent institutional promotion policies, childcare support, and accommodation of maternity leave. The purpose of this chapter is to educate the reader regarding gender inequality in surgery and related fields and to highlight key issues central to the propagation of gender biases specifically as they relate to female surgeons across various roles and responsibilities (e.g., clinical practice, education/training, and leadership) within the contemporary academic landscape.
Part of the book: Contemporary Topics in Graduate Medical Education