Sobol DL, Berfield KS, Shalhub S, Tatum RP, Yale LA, Perkins JD, Calhoun KE. Exploring the Influence of Gender on Surgical Clerkship Grades and Test Scores: A Single Institution, Multisite Comparison.
J Surg Educ 2022;
79:1132-1139. [PMID:
35660307 DOI:
10.1016/j.jsurg.2022.05.008]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/31/2021] [Revised: 04/23/2022] [Accepted: 05/11/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE
General surgery remains a male-dominated specialty. Women constitute 54% of medical students at the University of Washington, but only 3.4% of full professors within the Department of Surgery. Many believe surgical attrition and "the leaky pipeline" starts during medical school clerkships, but the exact deterrents remain undefined. This study examined the impact of gender on grading during the third-year surgical clerkship.
DESIGN
Retrospective analysis of confidential final clerkship grades, examination scores and subjective clerkship grades was conducted. These were compared by gender, time period, and type of clerkship site. Chi-square analyses were performed.
SETTING
Clerkship sites across multiple academic (n = 6) and nonacademic (n = 14) locations.
PARTICIPANTS
All third-year medical students undergoing a core surgical clerkship over 2 time periods-2007 to 2010 (period 1) and 2016 to 2019 (period 2)-were included.
RESULTS
There were 539 medical students in period 1 and 792 in period 2. The percentage of women was stable over time (52.0% vs 54.2%, p = 0.43). Final clerkship grades of Honors increased significantly from period 1 to 2 (22.3% vs 44.3%, p < 0.0001) and was similarly distributed by gender (women: 21.4% vs 48.0%, p < 0.0001; men 23.2% vs 39.9%, p < 0.0001). Honors on examinations remained stable over time and did not differ by gender. Women earned more final clerkship honors than men at academic sites in period 2 (48.4% vs 30.9%, p < 0.001). This finding was not identified in period 1, nor at nonacademic sites.
CONCLUSION
There was a significant increase in surgical clerkship honors over the past decade, independent of gender. Women attained more clinical and final clerkship honors than men and similar exam grades as time progressed, suggesting that gender bias in the subjective grading of women at this institution does not directly contribute to the loss of talented women as they progress from medical student to faculty within the department, with said gender imbalance not related to clerkship evaluations.
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