Gender Disparity in Chest Radiology in North America

Purpose: In the current cultural climate, gender disparity is a topical and contentious issue. In academic medicine, there is an underrepresentation of female faculty in leadership positions with lower research output and fewer grant awards. We study the gender differences in faculty rank, leadership positions, and research output among chest radiologists in North America.

Materials and methods: A list of clinical faculty at radiology programs in North America was obtained using the FREIDA database and program websites. Demographic information and data pertaining to academic rank, peer-reviewed publications, and research productivity of each chest radiologist was obtained from Doximity and SCOPUS databases.

Results: Four hundred ten (281 male:129 female) academic chest radiologists were included. Females were underrepresented at senior faculty level accounting for 18.8% (n = 21) of full, 29.2% (n = 21) of associate and 40.7% (n = 61) of assistant professors. 23.1% (n = 14) of department chiefs were women. Women were more likely to occupy a faculty position in chest radiology in Canada than in US (P < 0.05). The median H-index, and numbers of publications and citations were lower for females than male faculty (P < 0.05). Male faculty had more years of experience - median of 19 years, 16.5 years for females (P < 0.05).

Conclusions: Gender disparity exists in chest radiology with similar male predominance in terms of senior faculty rank, leadership roles, and research productivity to other medical specialties. The observed deficiency of research and scholarly output among female chest radiologists and the paucity of aspirational female radiologists in senior academic/leadership positions are factors which perpetuate this gender disparity and contribute to persistence of the gender pay gap.