Newswise — White male doctors are more likely to be promoted through the ranks of academic medicine than female physicians and those from racial or ethnic minority groups, according to research led by the University of Kansas Medical Center and
The study showed that Asian men, Asian women, Black women and white women were more likely than white men to be appointed to entry-level positions in academic medicine, such as instructor and assistant professor. But once white men entered academic medicine, they were more likely to be promoted to the upper ranks than nearly every other combination of race, gender and ethnicity.
“For promotion to associate and full professor, women and people of color are less likely to be promoted than white men, and women of color get kind of a double-whammy effect,” said Lauren Clark, M.S., lead author and a statistician in the Department of Biostatistics and Data Science at KU Medical Center. “Black women were about half as likely to be promoted as white men: Black women who graduated prior to 2000 were 55% less likely to be promoted to associate professor, and 41% less likely to be promoted to full professor.”
Hispanic women had the second-lowest likelihood of promotion to both associate and full professorship positions. American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women also had lower likelihoods of promotion, but because of the small number of these graduates in the study sample, the results were not statistically significant.
Developing diversity in faculty leadership may improve the health of the U.S. population, which has a shorter life expectancy and worse health outcomes than other countries with advanced economies, the study authors noted. Students at medical schools with more diverse faculty have reported being better prepared to care for minority populations, which may help reduce disparities in health care.
The research looked at data from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) for all M.D.-granting medical schools from 1979 to 2019, merged with data on faculty appointments from the AAMC Faculty Roster since 2000. The sample included 673,573 graduates.
Compounding the challenge of promoting diverse faculty in academic medicine is retaining those faculty. A separate study conducted at KU Medical Center, also , looked at retention for academic medicine faculty — how long physicians stay working in academic medicine and how that length of time varies by gender, race and ethnicity.
That study, which comprised 390,766 faculty members from 1978 to 2021, found that women left academic medicine a median of one year earlier than men. (The gap closed in the 2010s; however, this appears mainly to be due to men leaving academic medicine sooner during that period, rather than women staying longer.) And faculty from underrepresented racial and ethnic minority groups left academic medicine one to four years earlier than white faculty members.
The researchers say these studies underscore a need for academic medicine to transform its culture and practices in order to retain and promote diverse faculty. “I feel like we should approach these issues with curiosity,” said Taneisha Scheuermann, Ph.D., associate professor of population health at KU Medical Center, lead author on the retention study and co-author on the promotion study. “Think of all the training it takes to go through medical school and (then) to be a professor. If we can retain them and promote them and help them to develop and contribute to our country, it’s going to be good for everybody.”
By examining the effect of race and ethnicity, in addition to gender, on careers in academic medicine, these studies build on KU Medical Center published in 2020 in the New England Journal of Medicine that showed that women were less likely to be promoted to senior faculty and leadership positions in academic medicine than their male counterparts.
Kimber Richter, Ph.D., MPH, professor emerit of population health at KU Medical Center, who led the 2020 study and was a co-author on the recent research as well, noted that the studies confirm the personal experiences of many faculty: “Promotion and retention for most women and people of color are bad and not getting better,” said Richter. “We can do better.”
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