Show Notes - Disrupting Gender Bias

Overview:

In this episode, Tiffany discusses gender disparities in the evaluation of female residents in the context of the 2017 JAMA study with Dr. Anita Rohra. The study compared the ACGME milestone data collected over 2 years from 8 emergency medicine residency programs across the country of male versus female residents. It demonstrated that both male and female residents started residency at a similar competency level according to milestones, however, female emergency medicine residents were evaluated 0.15 milestones, equivalent of 3-4 months of training, lower than their male counterparts at graduation.  The study further found that both male and female attendings evaluated the female residents lower, oftentimes counter to the expressed beliefs of the attendings. 

Key Points:

• Overcoming gender bias requires constant diligent evaluation of ourselves and our behavior.
• Change will only come with speaking out and awareness.
• The attainment of equality is an active, not a passive, process.

References:

1. Dayal A, O'Connor DM, Qadri U, Arora VM. Comparison of Male vs Female Resident Milestone Evaluations by Faculty During Emergency Medicine Residency Training [published correction appears in JAMA Intern Med. 2017 May 1;177(5):747]. JAMA Intern Med. 2017;177(5):651–657. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.9616October 2017
2. Mueller, Anna S., Tania M. Jenkins, Melissa Osborne, Arjun Dayal, Daniel M. O’Connor, and Vineet M. Arora. 2017. “Gender Differences in Attending Physicians’ Feedback to Residents: A Qualitative Analysis.” Journal of Graduate Medical Education 9(5): 577–85.
3. The Delta Factor: Overcoming Gender Disparities - https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/emracast/530117925-emresidents-overcoming-gender-disparities-with-dr-esther-choo-and-dr-tiffany-proffitt.mp3