Female surgeons perform less complex cases than male peers, likely due
to systemic bias
A new study is one of the first to measure the problem of underemployment among female surgeons in the United States

Date:
October 9, 2020
Source:
Massachusetts General Hospital
Summary:
Female surgeons at a large academic medical center perform less
complex surgical procedures than their male counterparts, according
to a new study. This study is one of the first to measure the
problem of underemployment among female surgeons in the United
States, which can affect compensation, career advancement and
job satisfaction.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Female surgeons at a large academic medical center perform less complex surgical procedures than their male counterparts, according to a new
study by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). This study, published in Annals of Surgery, is one of the first to measure the
problem of underemployment among female surgeons in the United States,
which can affect compensation, career advancement and job satisfaction.


==========================================================================
Only about one in five surgeons practicing in U.S. is female. Unemployment
is virtually nonexistent among surgeons, but many female surgeons, as
well as professional women in other fields, experience underemployment --
the underuse of skills -- according to the Federal Reserve Bank. "Women
in surgery talk among themselves about how they may be perceived
as less confident or competent, and for those reasons they may have
less opportunity to do exciting and challenging cases," says Cassandra Kelleher, MD, a pediatric surgeon at MGH and senior author of the Annals
of Surgery study. "We wondered if this was true, and if so, why?" To find
out, Kelleher, post-doctoral researcher Ya-Wen Chen, MD, MPH, the lead
author of the study, and several colleagues analyzed 551,047 case records
from operations performed by 131 surgeons at MGH between 1997 and 2018. To compare the difficulty of surgeries that females and males performed, the researchers used a universally accepted metric known as the work Relative
Value Unit (wRVU), which measures the technical complexity of a procedure.

The study found that the mean wRVU for cases performed by male surgeons
was 10.8, compared to 8.3 for female surgeons, a difference in complexity
of 23 percent. "If you multiply that over the course of a year or a
career, that's a huge difference," says Chen.

The study's design ruled out common explanations for why female surgeons perform less complex procedures, such as their choice of subspecialty, or
that women are less available due to family commitments. The study also
found no sign that the problem has improved over the last two decades
and indicated that underemployment was a more significant problem for
female surgeons with greater seniority.

For years, female surgeons have been advised to take steps such
as attending leadership training conferences to help advance their
careers. While these programs have value, the study authors stress that
female surgeons themselves are not the problem. "It may be that referring physicians or patients lack confidence in female surgeons to perform
complex cases," says Chen. "If that's true, then we are not going to
solve the problem solely by having female surgeons attend leadership
training. We need a systemic approach." Finding the right approach
will require deeper understanding of the problem, researchers say, so
Chen, Kelleher and their colleagues are currently studying new patient referrals received by a group of female and male surgeons.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Massachusetts_General_Hospital. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Ya-Wen Chen, Maggie L. Westfal, David C. Chang, Cassandra
M. Kelleher.

Under-Employment of Female Surgeons? Annals of Surgery, 2020;
Publish Ahead of Print DOI: 10.1097/SLA.0000000000004497 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201009162413.htm

--- up 6 weeks, 4 days, 6 hours, 50 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1337:3/111)