Women Empowerment or Feminism: Facts and Myths about Feminization of Medical Education

Gender disparities in gastroenterology and hepatology conferences: The journey towards equality

BACKGROUND

This study scrutinizes gender representation in invited faculty and conference committee leadership at key gastroenterology and hepatology conferences in Pakistan over five years, exploring the impact of the "glass ceiling" and "sticky floor" phenomena on gender diversity within academic medicine.

METHODS

This cross-sectional study was conducted between January and March of 2023. The three major national societies of gastroenterology and hepatology in Pakistan that had been established for more than 10 years and the scientific programs of their annual conferences, which were publicly accessible, were included and coded as Society 1, Society 2 and Society 3 to maintain anonymity. The scientific programs for the last five years (2018-2022) were retrieved. The roles of invited faculties were identified as invited speakers, moderators, chairs/panelists, presidents and chairs of organizing or scientific committees and the gender makeup of the faculty was compared. Regression analysis was used to evaluate the trends for female representation over time for each role.

RESULTS

Significant gender disparity was evident by an extremely lower cumulative proportion of female invited faculty compared to males (211 [11.9%] vs. 1567 [88.1%], p 0.001). The predominance of invited male faculty was observed across all societies as well as in various roles of invited faculty (p 0.01). A significant disparity has also been observed in leadership positions of all three societies (43 [95.5%] males vs. 2 [4.5%] females, p 0.001), while the trend of women's underrepresentation across all societies remained almost unchanged over time (slope = 0.08, R2 =  - 0.078, p-value = 0.875).

CONCLUSION

Our study unveils striking gender disparities in women's representation as invited speakers and other roles at the annual scientific conferences of major gastroenterology and hepatology. Additionally, male dominance remains entrenched, notably in leadership positions, necessitating a proactive, multifaceted approach to rectify gender inequities.

The effects of gender discrimination on medical students' choice of specialty for their (junior) residency - a survey among medical students in Germany

BACKGROUND

Gender discrimination is known to affect societies in many different settings. Medical education is no exception. This study focusses on the consequences, gender discrimination can have on medical students and their choice of (junior) residency specialty.

METHODS

An online questionnaire was developed and distributed among the 40 medical faculties in Germany. The study population contained medical students in their fifth and sixth academic year.

RESULTS

The survey's participants consisted of 759 students from 31 universities. Female medical students experienced significantly more gender discrimination compared to their male colleagues (f = 487, 87.9% vs. m = 76, 45.8%, p < 0.0001). The specialties with the most reported gender discrimination were family medicine (f = 180, 42.9% vs. m = 15, 23.8%, p < 0.05), followed by surgery (f = 369, 87.4% vs. m = 44, 69.8%, p < 0.05), internal medicine (f = 282, 67.3% vs. m = 37, 58.7%, ns), orthopaedics/casualty surgery (f = 270, 65.1% vs. m = 32, 50.8%, p < 0.05), and gynaecology (women (f = 142, 34.1% vs. m = 34, 54.0%, p < 0.05). Gynaecology was the only specialty, men experienced more discrimination compared to women. Among the students that ever changed their specialty of choice (f = 346 (73.3%) m = 95 (72%)), significantly more women than men claimed gender discrimination to be one of the main three reasons for their specialty choice (f = 42, 12.1% vs. m = 1, 1.1%, p < 0.05). In addition, 53 students (f = 50 (10.6%) m = 3 (2.3%)) stated to rule out a specialty from the beginning due to gender discrimination.

CONCLUSION

Gender discrimination is frequently experienced by medical students in Germany. It influences their choice of medical specialty directly. Our data suggest a fundamental problem that proposes and implicates certain specialties to be attractive for only one gender.

Impact of students assistance policies on quality of life and mental health

Introduction

Student assistance policies in higher education, in their various modalities, seek to reduce the dropout of a new profile of students, non-traditional, with socioeconomic weaknesses, promoting quality of life (QoL) and mental health during the university journey. In this context, the Student Social Support Center (C.A.S.A) promotes assistance to students who need personal and/or economic support.

Objectives

To evaluate the QoL and the presence of minor mental disorders (MMD) in students from the 1st to the 4th year of medicine at a public college in Brazil, comparing C.A.S.A beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries.

Materials and methods

Cross-sectional study with 283 students. SRQ-20 and WHOQOL-BREF questionnaires were used, in addition to a questionnaire addressing sociodemographic data.

Results

The general average of QoL was regular in the four evaluated domains (physical, psychological, social relationships, environment) and 55.5% of the students have evidence of MMD, in which the QoL scores are lower in all domains. The environment domain, which discusses socioeconomic conditions, has the worst score among C.A.S.A beneficiaries and the best among C.A.S.A non-beneficiaries.

Discussion

The data corroborate the fragile situation of mental health and QoL of medical students. The student assistance modality of the analyzed program possibly presents vulnerabilities in its performance since the environment domain, the one with the lowest score among the program beneficiaries, precisely encompasses financial resources, access to goods and leisure and the individual's physical environment.