While few of us would expect a third- year medical student to spend an entire rotation on the IR service, we can foster recruitment by pressing for the implementation of a short IR rotation during the DR elective and further providing opportunities for senior medical students to spend a dedicated month in the field. The opportunity for medical students to pursue the IR/DR residency will allow women to contemplate the specialty early on instead of waiting until after medical school, internship, and residency, when often family and social commitments serve as a barrier for women advancing into more rigorous fellowship training programs.
Breaking the glass ceiling: Increasing the number of women in leadership positions The “glass ceiling” phenomenon, well known to women in multiple cultures and occupations, also exists in academic medicine and across medical specialty fields. Not only are women experiencing a pay gap due to segregation of women into lower-wage-earning careers relative to men, as seen in pediatrics vs. surgery (Heitkamp et al. 2017), but women are not advancing to leadership positions at the same rate. Although the distribution of men and women in medical school is nearly equal, a significant disparity remains between the genders in leadership positions with women representing a small fraction of full professors and medical school deans (Lautenberger et al. 2014)—contributing to the lack of relatable mentors for female medical students.
Glass ceiling issues generally relate to bias and institutional culture (Surawicz 2016). Although many may assume that conscious bias is no longer prevalent, it is curious to consider why women in radiology are more likely to be victims of sexual harassment and less likely to report it compared to other fields (Camargo et al. 2017).
Unconscious gender bias has been demonstrated in workforce recruitment and advancement. Consider as an example two job applicants who are identical except in gender; the male applicant is not only chosen more frequently (surprisingly, by both male and female reviewers) but
also usually offered a higher starting salary (Moss-Racusin 2012).
Unconscious bias and gender segregation in medicine crosses political boundaries. In multiple countries, certain specialties (e.g., pediatrics and family medicine) are considered to align more closely to perceived feminine traits (nurturing and interpersonal communication), while surgical specialties favor the perceived male traits of stamina, strength and competition, with relative hiring of women and men in those specialties following suit (Heitkamp et al. 2017; Hill & Giles 2014; Charles & Bradley 2009).
Institutional culture, which also plays a role, may be judged on the basis of relative number of promotions, salaries, opportunities for mentoring, family- friendly policies and support for work (Surawicz 2016).
Gender inequality across leadership positions should be viewed as a tremendous opportunity for female interventional radiologists because of the tremendous value we bring to the health care team and the benefit we bring to our patients (Tsugawa et al. 2017; Wallis et al. 2017). However, increasing the number of women in leadership positions will not be easy.
Critics may blame the lack of female leaders on the fact that women more often manage their household and their children (often single-handedly). As such, women work part-time more often than their male colleagues (Bluth et al. 2015). However, allowing for this trend still does not explain the dearth of female leaders as detailed above.
Although flexible work schedules, on-site child care and a generous maternity/paternity leave policy will not reverse bias in promotions, these strategies may increase the number of female applicants for promotions and leadership positions. SIR practice parameters for radiation protection of pregnant workers (Dauer et al. 2015) and the recent addition of the SIR position statement on parental leave (Englander et al. 2017) are excellent tools for working IRs with additional resources for trainees on the horizon.
Mentorship programs coupled with social and online media forums provide women who are current and future physicians with opportunities to ask difficult questions and obtain honest feedback from other women.
Breaking the glass cage: Facing internal barriers Women in any field may find themselves facing a self-imposed “glass cage,” a barrier constructed from our misgivings and self-doubt about our abilities. Often referred to as the imposter syndrome, this phenomenon is much more common in women and may affect our representation in leadership positions.
For example, men typically apply for a new position when they meet only 60 percent of the hiring criteria, while women typically wait until they reach 100 percent. Women are less likely to sit at the main table during meetings, less likely to offer suggestions, less likely to take credit for their own ideas, and often feel their success is a sequela of external factors, such as “being lucky”; men are more likely than women to take credit for borrowed ideas and feel that they earned their position by skill and talent (Sandberg 2013).
Shattering the imposter syndrome and the glass cage is not an easy task, but through professional development and leadership workshops geared specifically toward preparing female physicians for leadership positions, we can continue to develop the necessary communication and negotiation skills to excel.
Mentorship programs coupled with social and online media forums provide women who are current and future physicians with opportunities to ask difficult questions and obtain honest feedback from other women. Since I started “Radiology Chicks” and “Future Radiology Chicks,” online Facebook support groups for female radiologists and medical students, respectively, I’ve been approached by
sirweb.org/irq | 17
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40
