Women in senior post-graduate medicine career roles in the UK: a qualitative study

Women at the top: a qualitative study of women in leadership positions in emergency medicine in Canada

OBJECTIVES

For the last two decades, more than half of Canadian medical students have been women, with an increasing number of medical trainees choosing emergency medicine as their careers. Despite a proportional increase of women in full-time faculty positions in emergency medicine, women are still underrepresented in leadership. The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of women leaders in emergency medicine to identify common themes that may have contributed to their acquisition of leadership roles.

METHODS

Participants included women emergency medicine physicians in Canada who currently or previously held a leadership position. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Inductive thematic analysis was performed on the interview transcripts. Transcribed data were coded and categorized into recurrent themes. A narrative summary of the most impactful themes was presented.

RESULTS

Twenty participants were interviewed. Most participants perceived career opportunities were due to chance, related to personal skill set, or required additional training. Participants highlighted the importance of mentorship and sponsorship. Gender expectations and traditional gender roles were perceived as having a negative impact on career leadership success. Participants acknowledged the need for women in leadership to empower younger generations of women to become leaders. For future emergency medicine leaders, participants suggested applying for leadership positions early, networking, and seeking mentorship. Potential supportive changes to leadership structures included explicit parental leave policies, flexible scheduling, and job sharing to encourage women leaders.

CONCLUSION

To date, there has been no Canadian specific study exploring the factors contributing to the success of women leaders in emergency medicine. This study examines career advancement of women leaders in emergency medicine and provides useful insight to those aspiring to grow their careers, as well as to mentors and sponsors of women in emergency medicine.

Qualitative study exploring barriers and facilitators to progression for female medical clinical academics: interviews with female associate professors and professors

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to explore the barriers and facilitators to career progression for female medical clinical academics from the perspectives of female associate professors and professors, with a particular focus on women with caring responsibilities.

DESIGN

An exploratory qualitative approach was adopted. Data from semistructured interviews conducted via video calls were analysed using thematic analysis.

SETTING

Two major universities in the East Midlands of England.

PARTICIPANTS

The sample consisted of 13 female medical clinical academic associate professors and professors representing a range of medical specialties.

RESULTS

Female medical clinical academics experienced barriers and facilitators to progress at individual, interpersonal, institutional/procedural and societal levels.

CONCLUSIONS

Many barriers experienced at an individual level by female medical clinical academics are heavily influenced by their interpersonal relationships, the academic environment in which they work and broader institutional and procedural issues which, in turn, are influenced by stereotypical societal views on gender roles. Facilitating factors, including measures to increase the numbers of female leaders, may lead to a change of culture that is supportive to aspiring female clinical academics as well as enabling a healthy work/life balance for women and men with caring responsibilities.

A qualitative study exploring experiences and challenges of combining clinical academic training with family life

BACKGROUND

Concerns are being expressed around the lack of diversity at higher levels of clinical academia. This study aimed to explore experiences and challenges associated with combining clinical academic careers with family life.

METHODS

Qualitative data were gathered from participants from 4 NHS Trusts and 2 universities in the East Midlands of England using online surveys and semi-structured interviews.

RESULTS

The survey was completed by 67 nurses, midwives and allied health professionals, and 73 medical clinical academic trainees. Interviews were conducted with 16 participants from each group including equal numbers of men and women. Caring responsibilities differed between the two study populations. Medical clinical academic trainees were younger and either had young children or were yet to start a family. In contrast, nurses, midwives and allied health professionals tended to be older when they embarked on a clinical academic career and often waited until their children were school-age or older. Similar concerns were raised regarding working part-time and childcare, and how their career prospects might be affected in terms of fulfilling promotion criteria and being able to relocate for work purposes. The occupation of their partners also featured in participants' experiences; those who shared childcare with someone who worked 'regular' hours, appeared to be better supported to combine a clinical academic career with family life. Gender stereotyping was identified in some reported experiences highlighting a need for appropriate mentorship and for positive role models who were able to demonstrate that it is possible to survive and thrive as a clinical academic with family responsibilities.

CONCLUSIONS

Although people manage to find ways to successfully combine clinical academic roles with family life, findings highlight a need to identify ways of supporting and encouraging trainees with caring responsibilities to ensure that they remain on the clinical academic pathway.

Fostering excellence in medical education career pathways

High quality medical education requires committed and skilled educators, researchers, and leaders. Capacity building for future educationalists is fundamental in the pursuit of excellence in medical education. Medical education as a discipline is undervalued, underfunded, and often badmouthed. In order to pave the way to excellence, we must lay down the correct career pathways and foster a supportive climate in our speciality. In order to attract and support tomorrow's educationalists we argue that we need to champion the field, develop integrated clinical and educational training programmes, and promote role modelling and mentorship.

Women in veterinary leadership positions: their motivations and enablers

BACKGROUND

Despite now having higher numbers of women than men within the veterinary profession, there are substantially less women in leadership roles. Research, primarily in other professions, has focussed on barriers to leadership and sometimes overlooked facilitators and motivators. This study aimed to explore the motivating factors for female veterinary surgeons to become leaders, to identify potential strategies to increase female leadership.

METHODS

Sixteen female leaders from academia, professional bodies, industry and clinical practice took part in semistructured interviews. Interviews were analysed using a thematic analysis approach.

RESULTS

Two themes were developed: 'Potential for positive influence' and 'Requirement of external enablers'. Participants wanted to influence change for themselves, including work-life balance and developing their role, and for others through a position of influence. They wanted to inspire and mentor the future generation of leaders. External enablers allowed this transition to occur, including formal mentors and informal support systems, opportunities for growth and increased responsibility, and leadership training.

CONCLUSION

Potential strategies to increase female leaders include the promotion of female role models, increasing awareness of training and increasing work flexibility. The profession could improve its support of the next generation of leaders and celebrate the successful female leaders we already possess.

Results of the British Society of Gastroenterology supporting women in gastroenterology mentoring scheme pilot

INTRODUCTION

Mentorship has long been recognised as beneficial in the business world and has more recently been endorsed by medical and academic professional bodies. Recruitment of women into gastroenterology and leadership roles has traditionally been difficult. The Supporting Women in Gastroenterology network developed this pilot scheme for female gastroenterologists 5 years either side of the Completion Certificate of Specialist Training (CCST) to examine the role that mentorship could play in improving this discrepancy.

METHOD

Female gastroenterology trainees and consultant gastroenterologists within 5 years either side of CCST were invited to participate as mentees. Consultant gastroenterologists of both genders were invited to become mentors. 35 pairs of mentor:mentees were matched and completed the scheme over 1 year. Training was provided.

RESULTS

The majority of the mentees found the sessions useful (82%) and enjoyable (77%), with the benefit of having time and space to discuss professional or personal challenges with a gastroenterologist who is not a colleague. In the longitudinal study of job satisfaction, work engagement, burnout, resilience, self-efficacy, self-compassion and work-life balance, burnout scale showed a small but non significant improvement over the year (probably an effect of small sample size). Personal accomplishment improved significantly. The main challenges were geography, available time to meet and pair matching. The majority of mentors surveyed found the scheme effective, satisfying, mutually beneficial (70%) and enjoyable (78%).

CONCLUSION

Mentorship is shown to be beneficial despite the challenges and is likely to improve the recruitment and retention of women into gastroenterology and leadership roles, but is likely to benefit gastroenterologists of both genders.