Women in Pediatric Academia

Over the past decade, the number of women medical students in this country has risen substantially; however, there has not been a parallel rise in the proportion of women faculty members with MD degrees. In 1967 to 1968 women comprised 13.3% of the 17,801 full-time faculty at medical schools in the United States; only 8.9% of these women faculty members had MD degrees. Ten year later in 1977 to 1978, women were 15.2% of the 41,161 full-time medical school faculty with only 10.5% of the women with MD degrees (Table 1). The largest number of female faculty members was found in the following departments: physical medicine, pediatrics, public health, anesthesiology, and psychiatry. The smallest number of women faculty members was found in surgery and orthopedic surgery.1 A national statistical survey by Farrell et al2 from catalogs from 102 medical schools in the United States provides the first comprehensive report of the extent and pattern of underuse of women physicians in medical academia. In this study, women were found to be clustered in the untenured, and/or lower faculty positions. Witte et al,3 in a report of women physicians in the US medical schools in 1976 found that women professors comprised only 2.9% and associate professors 4.4% of the tenured and/or senior faculty positions. Even in the field of pediatrics, where there are a larger number of women faculty, only 11.7% held a tenured faculty appointment. The status and problems of women in medicine and women in academia have been the subject of several recent reports.4-8