Gender disparities in leadership and scholarly productivity of academic hospitalists

Abstract

Background: Gender disparities still exist for women in academic medicine but may be less evident in younger cohorts. Hospital medicine is a new field, and the majority of hospitalists are <41 years of age.

Objective: To determine whether gender disparities exist in leadership and scholarly productivity for academic hospitalists and to compare the findings to academic general internists.

Design: Prospective and retrospective observational study.

Setting: University programs in the United States.

Measurements: Gender distribution of (1) academic hospitalists and general internists, (2) division or section heads for both specialties, (3) speakers at the 2 major national meetings of the 2 specialties, and (4) first and last authors of articles from the specialties' 2 major journals

Results: We found equal gender representation of hospitalists and general internists who worked in university hospitals. Divisions or sections of hospital medicine and general internal medicine were led by women at 11/69 (16%) and 28/80 (35%) of university hospitals, respectively (P = 0.008). Women hospitalists and general internists were listed as speakers on 146/557 (26%) and 291/580 (50%) of the presentations at national meetings, respectively (P < 0.0001), first authors on 153/464 (33%) and 423/895 (47%) publications, respectively (P < 0.0001), and senior authors on 63/305 (21%) and 265/769 (34%) articles, respectively (P < 0.0001).

Conclusions: Despite hospital medicine being a newer field, gender disparities exist in leadership and scholarly productivity.