Patterns of Feedback on the Bridge to Independence: A Qualitative Thematic Analysis of NIH Mentored Career Development Award Application Critiques

[Dream job orthopedics and trauma surgery-This can also come true for women!]

BACKGROUND

At least two thirds of medical students are female. How can they be won over in the competition for the best heads and hands in the field of orthopedics and trauma surgery? 25% of the inpatient surgeons are female, while the proportion of women in managerial positions is only 5%.

GOAL OF THE WORK (QUESTION)

How do the specialist field and the specialist society have to change in order to be attractive for the younger generation, and be regarded as a dream job?

MATERIAL AND METHODS

With the help of surveys and scientific literature, the following problem areas are identified and highlighted: What do today's young doctors want? How should employers and superiors behave in relation to the women-specific life events of pregnancy, maternity leave and breastfeeding? How to enable female surgeons to continue operating as desired in accordance with the law? Often in clinics, care is not taken to provide female surgeons with individually sized instruments. A manufacturer survey was carried out for this purpose. How can we counteract the sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace? How can male and female professionals achieve a more equal balance between family and work in the clinic and practice?

RESULTS

The Gender Bias, the glass ceiling, the lack of female role models and female mentors mean that female surgeons do not have equal opportunities. The gender pay gap and the gender care gap are discussed and presented with data. Significantly, there is a specific lack of data on the gender pay gap in Germany. The everyday clinical practice and the professional society are still a man's world. In order to attract a sufficient number of young professionals, the working environment and participation in committees must be transformed into a world that is equal for male and female surgeons.

DISCUSSION

With regard to the identified problem areas, suggestions for improvement for active implementation are listed.

Occupational segregation by gender in veterinary specialties: Who we are choosing, or who is choosing us

OBJECTIVE

Gender demographics vary across specialties including surgery, internal medicine, cardiology, neurology, and oncology. Our objective was to determine whether residency selection or the decision to apply for training drives these differences.

STUDY DESIGN

Retrospective cohort study.

SAMPLE POPULATION

Matched and unmatched residents lists from Veterinary Internship and Residency Matching Program (VIRMP) from 2011 to 2020. Comparative Data Reports from the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges from 2010 to 2019.

METHODS

Names for matched and unmatched residents with addresses in the United States or Canada were coded for gender for seven programs: large and small animal surgery, large and small animal medicine, cardiology, neurology, and oncology. Match rate by gender was compared using chi-square tests. Gender demographics of applicants were compared to demographics of graduates using tests of two proportions.

RESULTS

No differences were observed between genders for the likelihood of successfully matching into each residency program evaluated except in large animal internal medicine. Women (44.2%) were slightly more likely to match, overall, than men (39.0%, p = .003). The proportions of women applying for residencies overall (70.7%), in large and small animal surgery (66.1%, 62.2%), cardiology (70.2%), and neurology (70.7%) were lower than the proportion of female graduates (79%; p's < .001).

CONCLUSION

No evidence for gender bias was detected in the VIRMP resident selection process. Female veterinary graduates seemed less likely to apply for residencies than their male counterparts.

IMPACT

Occupational segregation seems to stem from the decision to apply for residency. Interventions aimed at altering gender demographics in specialized medicine should target potential applicants.

Perceptions of Pressures to Alter or Misrepresent Time Allocation Among Clinician-Researchers With NIH Career Development Awards

PURPOSE

National Institutes of Health career development (K) awards mandate specific allocations of effort to research and training. The authors sought to understand pressures perceived by award recipients to change or misrepresent effort, and whether these perceptions differed by gender.

METHOD

In 2010-2011 and 2014, the authors surveyed K08 and K23 award recipients. Questions evaluated perceived pressure to change or misrepresent time allocation. Multivariable logistic regression modeling of pressure to misrepresent effort evaluated associations with individual and basic job characteristics.

RESULTS

Of the 1,719 faculty in the initial target population, 493 women and 573 men (1,066, 62%) responded at both time points. Most respondents reported feeling pressure to increase time spent on professional activities other than their K award-related research or career development or to decrease time on their K award-related research. The likelihood of perceiving pressure differed significantly by gender: 68% of women vs 55% of men (P < .001). A minority reported perceiving pressure to misrepresent professional time (women, 29%, vs men, 27%, P = .52). Multivariable analysis revealed that pressure to misrepresent professional time was less likely among respondents at institutions with the most extramural funding (P = .02). A significant pairwise interaction between gender and K award type suggested that female K08 awardees had higher odds than male peers of perceiving pressure to misrepresent time.

CONCLUSIONS

Most K award recipients reported feeling pressure to do more non-K award-related activities. More than a quarter reported feeling pressure to misrepresent effort. Additional research is needed to evaluate the proportion of academic medical faculty who actually misrepresent professional effort.

Gender, Race, and Grant Reviews: Translating and Responding to Research Feedback

Grant-writing and grant-getting are key to success in many academic disciplines, but research points to gender gaps in both, especially as careers progress. Using a sample of National Institutes of Health (NIH) K-Awardees-Principal Investigators of Mentored Career Development Awards-we examined gender and race effects in response to imagined negative grant reviews that emphasized either promise or inadequacy. Women translated both forms of feedback into worse NIH priority scores than did men and showed reduced motivation to reapply for funding following the review highlighting inadequacy. Translation of feedback mediated the effects of gender on motivation, changing one's research focus, and advice-seeking. Race effects were less consistent, and race did not moderate effects of gender. We suggest that gender bias in grant reviews (i.e., greater likelihood of highlighting inadequacy in reviews of women's grants), along with gender differences in responsiveness to feedback, may contribute to women's underrepresentation in academic medicine.

How Gender Stereotypes May Limit Female Faculty Advancement in Communication Sciences and Disorders

Purpose

The field of communication sciences and disorders (CSD) faces a critical shortage of the faculty essential to train the future workforce of speech-language pathologists and audiologists. Despite a predominance of women in the field, men receive doctoral degrees, tenure status, academic leadership positions, and American Speech-Language-Hearing Association awards at disproportionately higher rates than women. The purpose of this review is to explore how implicit gender bias may contribute to female faculty advancement, including current and projected faculty workforce shortages, and to propose tangible solutions.

Method

The authors present proportions of men and women who receive doctoral degrees, advance to each faculty rank, receive tenure status, hold department chairs in CSD, and receive American Speech-Language-Hearing Association honors and awards. They review ways in which cultural stereotypes give rise to implicit gender bias and discuss myriad ways that implicit gender bias may influence the decisions of students considering an academic career in CSD and their career trajectories.

Conclusions

Cultural stereotypes about men and women lead to implicit gender bias that may have real consequences for female faculty advancement in CSD. Such implicit bias can influence career selection and outcomes within the field in multiple ways. To ensure that CSD continues to attract top talent and maintain a robust pipeline of future faculty in doctoral training programs, the field must recognize the existence of implicit gender bias and implement evidence-based strategies to minimize its potentially damaging effects on the future of the profession.

Are Female Applicants Disadvantaged in National Institutes of Health Peer Review? Combining Algorithmic Text Mining and Qualitative Methods to Detect Evaluative Differences in R01 Reviewers' Critiques

BACKGROUND

Women are less successful than men in renewing R01 grants from the National Institutes of Health. Continuing to probe text mining as a tool to identify gender bias in peer review, we used algorithmic text mining and qualitative analysis to examine a sample of critiques from men's and women's R01 renewal applications previously analyzed by counting and comparing word categories.

METHODS

We analyzed 241 critiques from 79 Summary Statements for 51 R01 renewals awarded to 45 investigators (64% male, 89% white, 80% PhD) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison between 2010 and 2014. We used latent Dirichlet allocation to discover evaluative "topics" (i.e., words that co-occur with high probability). We then qualitatively examined the context in which evaluative words occurred for male and female investigators. We also examined sex differences in assigned scores controlling for investigator productivity.

RESULTS

Text analysis results showed that male investigators were described as "leaders" and "pioneers" in their "fields," with "highly innovative" and "highly significant research." By comparison, female investigators were characterized as having "expertise" and working in "excellent" environments. Applications from men received significantly better priority, approach, and significance scores, which could not be accounted for by differences in productivity.

CONCLUSIONS

Results confirm our previous analyses suggesting that gender stereotypes operate in R01 grant peer review. Reviewers may more easily view male than female investigators as scientific leaders with significant and innovative research, and score their applications more competitively. Such implicit bias may contribute to sex differences in award rates for R01 renewals.