Gender disparity among top North American medical schools and their affiliated radiology departments

Purpose

This study aimed to evaluate the degree of gender disparity in leadership positions at the top 25 medical schools in North America compared to their affiliated radiology departments.

Methods

The academic rank and leadership appointment of medical school and radiology faculty were obtained from publicly available official websites between June-November 2022. Gender was determined using self-identified pronouns on website biographies. Alternatively, gender API software was used. Finally, SCOPUS Elsevier was used to extract research output metrics including publication counts, citations, and h-indices. Statistical analysis was conducted using the IBM SPSS Statistics version 25 software.

Results

2216 individuals across 25 medical schools were included in this study. 1301 (58.7 %) were part of the medical school and 915 (41.3 %) were part of the affiliated radiology departments. Additionally, 1575 (71.1 %) were identified as men and 641 (28.9 %) as women. Rank biserial correlations showed a significant association between higher academic rank and male gender (r_pb = 0.143, p < 0.001) regardless of affiliation (medical school leadership versus radiology faculty); this disparity was largest at the highest academic ranks. Male gender was associated with higher research productivity relative to female gender regardless of affiliation (p < 0.001). There were minimal statistical differences in leadership positions between genders, however the proportion of men holding the position of dean was two times higher than women.

Conclusion

The underrepresentation of women in academic medicine is prevalent in the top-ranking medical institutions in North America and disproportionately involves senior academic ranks and leadership positions.