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Gender Distribution in Pediatric Hospital Medicine Leadership

Journal of Hospital Medicine 16(1). 2021 January;:J. Hosp. Med. 2021 January;16(1):31-33. Published Online First December 23, 2020. doi: 10.12788/jhm.3555 | DOI: 10.12788/jhm.3555
December 23, 2020|Journal of Hospital Medicine
Jessica M Allan, MD;Juliann L Kim, MD;Shawn L Ralston, MD, MS;Nicole M Paradise Black, MD, MEd;Rebecca Blankenburg, MD, MPH;Erin E Shaughnessy, MD, MSHCM;H Barrett Fromme, MD, MHPE
Author and Disclosure Information

1Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Palo Alto, California; 2Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University College of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland; 3Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida; 4Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, California; 5Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Alabama-Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama; 6Department of Pediatrics, The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois.

Disclosures

The authors have nothing to disclose.

 

Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM), a field early in its development and with a robust pipeline of women, is in a unique position to lead the way in gender equity. We describe the proportion of women in divisional and fellowship leadership positions at university-based PHM programs (n = 142). When compared with the PHM field at large, women appear to be underrepresented as PHM division/program leaders (70% vs 55%; P < .001) but not as fellowship directors (70% vs 66%; P > .05). Women appear proportionally represented in associate/assistant leadership roles when compared with the distribution of the PHM field at large. Tracking these trends over time is essential to advancing the field. 

© 2021 Society of Hospital Medicine

There is a growing appreciation of gender disparities in career advancement in medicine. By 2004, approximately 50% of medical school graduates were women, yet considerable differences persist between genders in compensation, faculty rank, and leadership positions.1-3 According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), women account for only 25% of full professors, 18% of department chairs, and 18% of medical school deans.1 Women are also underrepresented in other areas of leadership such as division directors, professional society leadership, and hospital executives.4-6

Specialties that are predominantly women, including pediatrics, are not immune to gender disparities. Women represent 71% of pediatric residents1 and currently constitute two-thirds of active pediatricians in the United States.7 However, there is a disproportionately low number of women ascending the pediatric academic ladder, with only 35% of full professors2 and 28% of department chairs being women.1 Pediatrics also was noted to have the fifth-largest gender pay gap across 40 specialties.3 These disparities can contribute to burnout, poorer patient outcomes, and decreased advancement of women known as the “leaky pipeline.”1,8,9

There is some evidence that gender disparities may be improving among younger professionals with increasing percentages of women as leaders and decreasing pay gaps.10,11 These potential positive trends provide hope that fields in medicine early in their development may demonstrate fewer gender disparities. One of the youngest fields of medicine is pediatric hospital medicine (PHM), which officially became a recognized pediatric subspecialty in 2017.12 There is no literature to date describing gender disparities in PHM. We aimed to explore the gender distribution of university-based PHM program leadership and to compare this gender distribution with that seen in the broader field of PHM.

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