The Operating Room and Learning Environment for US-Based Muslim Women in Medicine

Abstract

Objective: As the number of women in medical training rises, there has been increased interest in understanding the perspectives of minority women. Although Muslim women face unique challenges in pursuing medical training, there are no current studies dedicated to understanding the experience of Muslim women as healthcare professionals. This study aims to present insight into perspectives of United States-based Muslim women physicians, residents, and medical students on discrimination and allyship, the operating room environment, mentorship, and institutional resources.

Design: A cross-sectional survey was distributed between November 2020 and March 2021 to US-based Muslim women in medical training. The survey was designed to query perspectives across four domains: discrimination and allyship, the operating room environment, mentorship, and institutional resources. Respondents completed a series of 32 questions and were invited to provide free-form comments at the end of the survey. Two-sided tests of significance were used, with a 0.05 threshold. Analyses were performed using R, Version 1.3.

Setting: Online cross-sectional survey distributed from a major academic medical center.

Participants: 117 Muslim women in the United States in medical training (MD/DO pathways) (n = 117).

Results: Respondents reported high levels of discrimination, significant barriers to reporting discrimination, unique challenges in the operating room, and limited institutional support. The majority reported satisfaction with the mentorship available to them, with gender concordance deemed more important than religion concordance.

Conclusions: In this report of survey results, we present insight into perspectives of US-based Muslim women in medicine on mentorship, discrimination & allyship, the operating room environment, and institutional resources. A unique area of focus that emerged within the survey was the culture regarding wearing hijab in the operating room, as well as multiple areas in which institutions can better support their Muslim members.

Keywords: diversity; inclusion; medical education; mentorship; women.