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Female Medical Academics Lag in Promotions Women now comprise more than 40% of medical school graduates, and in the 1980s they were more likely than their male counterparts to enter academic medicine as assistant professors. But women on medical school faculties are still less likely to get promoted to senior ranks than men are, according to new study findings. Dr. Lynn Nonnemaker of the Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington, DC, reviewed data on all graduates of American medical schools from 1979 through 1993, and all medical school faculties from 1979 to 1997. She wanted to know whether "women physicians in academic medicine (are) as likely as their male counterparts to advance beyond the junior faculty ranks." Nonnemaker looked at overall figures, as well as grouping the graduates according to when they finished school. Until the 1990s, women graduates were significantly more likely to enter academics than men. But of those who became assistant professors -- the first of three academic ranks -- women were less likely than men to advance to associate professor. Similarly, those who did progress to this rank were less likely to make full professor. Writing in the February 10th issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, Nonnemaker points out that in absolute numbers, there are many more women teaching at all ranks than there were 20 years ago. For example, 647 women held the rank of full professor in 1979, compared with 2,335 in 1997. But the distribution of women among the ranks has hardly changed -- about 34% of male faculty are full professors, compared with about 12% of female faculty. The higher numbers just reflect the larger number of women entering medical teaching overall. "Women are significantly less likely to have reached the senior ranks of academic medicine," concludes Nonnemaker. These findings "demonstrate the need for a better balance of male and female role models for purposes of education, research, and service." Nonnemaker also warns that "the large disparity between the proportion of women enrolled as students in medical schools and the proportion of women who hold senior faculty positions may discourage women from pursuing academic careers in the future." Writing in the same issue, Dr. Catherine De Angelis, the new editor of The Journal of the American Medical Association, agrees. She calls for better mentoring of women in junior faculty positions, and more active leadership on the part of female senior faculty. "There must be mentors for women faculty members, and they must be promoted at a rate that is equitable to the rate for men." Do You Agree? Disagree? SOURCE: The New England Journal of Medicine 2000;342:399-405, 426-427.

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