Features
Leveling the
Playing Field
Can We Achieve
Gender Equality in
Medicine?
When Stephanie Abbuhl, MD, professor of emergency
medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman
School of Medicine, was growing up in the early 1960s,
the women around her – her grandmother, mother,
aunts, and friends’ mothers – were either homemakers,
teachers, secretaries, or nurses. Then came Title IX in
1972, a civil rights law that amended the Higher Educa-
tion Act of 1965 and prohibited discrimination on the
basis of sex in any federally funded education program
or activity.
“I had just started college at the time, and I saw the
change happen. It was very exciting, and suddenly, more
women were going to medical school,” said Dr. Abbuhl,
who also serves as the executive director of the FOCUS
on Health & Leadership for Women program at Penn.
FOCUS is dedicated to supporting the advancement of
female faculty into leadership positions and promoting
research into women’s health.
Dr. Abbuhl entered medical school in 1976, when
women comprised approximately a quarter of incom-
ing medical school classes. In the first 20 years of her
career, she saw that number grow to 50 percent. “It was
remarkable – and a complete sea change,” she told ASH
Clinical News.
Yet, when she became a faculty member at the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania, she saw fewer women advancing
in academic medicine. Witnessing the difficulties women
were having climbing the ranks and attaining leadership
roles gave her pause – and ignited her interest in devel-
oping initiatives that support and help advance women
faculty.
“Women were bringing unbelievable talent to the
medical workforce – talent that, frankly, medicine des-
perately needed,” said Dr. Abbuhl. “But I also saw these
women’s struggles, particularly as our society is still
structured such that one parent often needs to put more
time in at home. That responsibility was falling mainly
on women.”
Gender inequality has become a frequent topic of
discussion, with movements like Time’s Up and #MeToo
shining a light on discrimination and harassment
against women in the workplace. The movements origi-
nated in Hollywood, but no profession was immune,
including medicine.
ASH Clinical News spoke with Dr. Abbuhl and others
who study the factors that influence gender inequality in
medicine and design interventions to correct these imbal-
ances and help women reach the same levels of success as
their male counterparts.
Rising Through the Ranks
Molly Carnes, MD, MS, a professor in the Department of
Medicine at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medi-
cine and Public Health and director of the Center for
Women’s Health Research, had an experience similar to
Dr. Abbuhl’s. When she became a tenured professor, she
looked around and saw that, unlike
her medical school class, 40 percent of
whom had been women, she was the
only female tenured faculty member
in her department.
“That observation intrigued me,
much more so than the benchtop
research I was doing,” she said. “So,
I redirected my focus to dig into the
interventions that could foster better
—LINDA BURNS, MD
opportunities for women and other
“Leaders in academic medicine
have to create a sense of
urgency. And we can change
the culture!”
60
ASH Clinical News
underrepresented groups in STEMM [science, technol-
ogy, engineering, mathematics, and medicine] fields.
Particularly, I wanted to help these individuals become
leaders in their field,” Dr. Carnes told ASH Clinical News.
Even though one in three physicians are women, a
study conducted in 2017 found that female physicians
continue to be passed over for recognition awards,
which represent access to key resources and participa-
tion in leadership activities. 1 The disparity was stagger-
ing, particularly in the case of the American Academy
of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, which hadn’t
recognized a woman with an achievement award in 40
years. 1,2
A recent study that tracked women’s career advance-
ment in academic medicine in Germany found that,
even as more women have joined the ranks of clinicians
and investigators over the last 20 years, the proportion
of female chairs and full professors in academic medi-
cine is staggeringly low. 3 The ratio of women to men
in medical school was 1.54 in 2013; in the same year,
the ratio in specialty chair positions was only about
0.1. This pattern was observed even in subspecialties in
which women represent the majority of physicians, such
as obstetrics/gynecology.
“It’s concerning to me that, despite more women
entering academic medicine, there remains a large
gender gap in promotion from junior faculty to senior
leadership positions,” said Linda Burns, MD, the vice
president and medical director of Health Services Re-
search at the National Marrow Donor Program/Be The
Match and former president of the American Society
of Hematology (ASH). “I suspect that the reasons are
varied, including the need for role models, faculty men-
torship programs, and a self-awareness that we must be
advocates for our own career advancement.”
Dr. Burns added that, in her experience, “ASH staff
and leadership have done a fantastic job of raising
awareness about gender imbalances and ensuring diver-
sity throughout the organization – award committees,
July 2018