Women in academic medicine continue to face harassment and pay gaps

Even as more women are emerging as full professors and leaders in academic medicine, they are typically earning less than men, and too many are saying they’ve experienced sexual harassment.

Women continue to face inequities in pay in academic medicine, and nearly 1 in 3 say they have been experienced sexual harassment in the past 12 months, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Women are consistently being paid less than men of the same race and ethnicity, according to a report released this month by the Association of American Medical Colleges. Pay disparities emerge even at the beginning of academic careers.

Nearly one in three women (31%) say they have been sexually harassed within the past 12 months, the AAMC report states. It does mark a drop of two percentage points compared to the previous AAMC report in 2022, but still remains disturbingly high.

Almost half (44%) of LGB+ women said they experienced sexual harassment in the previous 12 months, according to AAMC data.

Diana Lautenberger, the AAMC’s director of gender equity initiatives, said progress should be recognized, but much work remains to improve conditions for women in academic medicine. The AAMC held a webinar Wednesday focused on the report and the ongoing challenges for women.

“We want everyone to be treated equitably, with respect, and valued for the talents that they bring to academic medicine and feeling like they have the ability to show up as their true self,” Lautenberger said.

Women in some departments report especially high rates of harassment, with 43% of women in surgery and 44% of women in pharmacology saying they were sexually harassed in the past year.

In two departments, more than half of women reported sexual harassment in the past 12 months: emergency medicine (51%) and anesthesiology (54%).

Other researchers have pointed to high levels of sexual harassment of women in academic medicine. A study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association in June 2023 found women faculty reported hostility, sexist remarks and inequities in pay.

Women in leadership

To be sure, women are making gains.

As of 2023, women represented 27% of medical school deans, up from 16% in 2023. Women also account for 45% of all full-time faculty, and slightly more than half (51%) of full-time faculty under the age of 50.

Women also account for 25% of academic health system leaders, according to AAMC data.

More women are working as department chairs. A quarter (25%) of department chairs are women, up from 15% in 2013. But fewer women are department chairs in certain departments, such as emergency medicine (15%) and surgery (8%).

In some departments, women represent less than one-third of full-time faculty, including radiology (30%); surgery (29%); and orthopedic surgery (22%).

The AAMC report found big disparities in the ranks of women faculty and department chairs in OB-GYN departments. While more than two-thirds of full-time faculty (69%) in OB-GYN departments are women, women hold 38% of department chairs.

Valerie Dandar, AAMC’s director of medical school operations research, said Wednesday that academic medicine must address “institutional structures and climate issues that require further attention if we're going to continue progress towards equity and organizational excellence broadly.”

Gap in salaries

The pay disparities continue for women in academic medicine. White women earn 78 cents on the dollar compared to white men, according to the AAMC report. Black women earn 74 cents per dollar compared to white men.

A female clinical MD and full professor earns 83 cents on the dollar compared to men. The AAMC report also notes that pay disparities emerge at the beginning of careers in academic medicine. A clinical MD assistant professor earns 79 cents on the dollar compared to men.

“Salary equities really begin early in faculty careers and are compounded over time,” Dandar said.

• Read more: In academic medicine, women doctors are paid less from the start

Women hold less than one-third of endowed leader and professor positions, according to AAMC data. And there are stark pay disparities for those posts.

Men were awarded $231,000 for leadership roles and $277,000 for serving as endowed professors, while women received $76,000 for leadership roles and $133,000 for professorships.

There has been less encouraging news in the growth of women from minority groups in the faculty ranks, rising just 1.5% from 2013 to 2023.

“We see very little progress has been made in diversifying the full-time faculty ranks over the past 10 years,” Dandar said.

Women account for more than half (54.6%) of all medical students. For the fifth consecutive year, women accounted for more than half of applicants and first year students (56.6% and 55.4%, respectively), according to AAMC data.

Pushing for change

The AAMC report suggests a number of strategies to improve the environment for women in academic medicine.

Institutions should implement policies to ensure equal pay for faculty and regularly review faculty salaries, the report suggests. The AAMC also suggests organizations should monitor data on bias and harassment of women, and also collect data on race and ethnicity, sexual orientation and multiple gender identities.

The AAMC is going to continue pushing academic institutions to evaluate how they are promoting faculty into leadership posts. The group is looking to “equip institutions with the right information to promote and advance all marginalized genders into power and leadership positions,” Lautenberger said.

And the AAMC is going to be focusing on equity in compensation for women, including looking at institutional structure that can affect salaries. The AAMC is also going to be rallying leaders to make changes. Plans are being developed for a salary equity summit next spring.

“We want to convene leaders who can really make system-wide changes and impact on compensation in academic medicine,” Lautenberger said.