AEM Early Access 24: Gender Differences in Faculty Rank Among Academic Emergency Physicians

Welcome to the twenty-fourth episode of AEM Early Access, a FOAMed podcast collaboration between the Academic Emergency Medicine Journal and Brown Emergency Medicine. Each month, we'll give you digital open access to an recent AEM Article or Article in Press, with an author interview podcast and suggested supportive educational materials for EM learners.

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DISCUSSING (CLICK ON LINK FOR FULL TEXT, OPEN ACCESS THROUGH MARCH 31):

Gender Differences in Faculty Rank Among Academic Emergency Physicians in the United States. Christopher L. Bennett MD, MA, Ali S. Raja MD, MPH, Neena Kapoor, MD, Dara Kass, MD, Daniel M. Blumenthal MD, MBA, Nate Gross, MD, Angela M. Mills MD

LISTEN NOW: FIRST AUTHOR INTERVIEW WITH Christopher L. Bennett MD, MA

Christopher Bennett, MD, MA

Board of Directors, Society for Academic Emergency Medicine

Resident Physician, Harvard Emergency Medicine (MGH/BWH)

Twitter: @cleebennett

ABSTRACT

Background: The purpose of this study was to complete a comprehensive analysis of gender differences in faculty rank among U.S. emergency physicians that reflected all academic emergency physicians.

Methods: We assembled a comprehensive list of academic emergency medicine (EM) physicians with U.S. medical school faculty appointments from Doximity.com linked to detailed information on physician gender, age, years since residency completion, scientific authorship, National Institutes of Health (NIH) research funding, and participation in clinical trials. To estimate gender differences in faculty rank, multivariable logistic regression models were used that adjusted for these factors.

Results: Our study included 3,600 academic physicians (28%, or 1,016, female). Female emergency physicians were younger than their male colleagues (mean [±SD] age was 43.8 [±8.7] years for females and 47.4 [±9.9] years for males [p < 0.001]), had fewer years since residency completion (12.4 years vs. 15.6 years, p < 0.001), had fewer total and first/last author publications (4.7 vs. 8.6 total publications, p < 0.001; 4.3 vs. 7.1 first or last author publications, p < 0.001), and were less likely to be principal investigators on NIH grants (1.2% vs. 2.9%, p = 0.002) or clinical trials (1.8% vs. 4.4%, p < 0.001). In unadjusted analysis, male physicians were more likely than female physicians to hold the rank of associate or full professor versus assistant professor (13.7 percentage point difference, p < 0.001), a relationship that persisted after multivariable adjustment (5.5 percentage point difference, p = 0.001).

Conclusions: Female academic EM physicians are less likely to hold the rank of associate or full professor compared to male physicians even after detailed adjustment for other factors that may influence faculty rank.