M. Barrett1, C. P. Magas1, N. Matusko1, R. M. Reddy1, G. Sandhu1 1University Of Michigan,General Surgery,Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Introduction: The demographics of the surgical trainee and medical student populations has seen a significant shift with women now making up 20% of US surgical residents and student populations achieving parity. Expectantly, the proportion of women surgical faculty has increased overtime, although it remains low at 10-20%. How this shift affects surgical education and the learner experience has yet to be fully elucidated. Prior work has shown that students value different attributes in surgical faculty (more nurturing) than do residents (more technical training). We sought to assess for differences in teaching evaluations based on faculty gender, hypothesizing that students would favor teaching attributes of female faculty.
Methods: Student and resident teaching evaluations of 43 faculty (12 females, 31 males) were reviewed. Faculty rankings (1 to 43) for both students and residents were created using mean faculty educator scores over 3 years. Outlier faculty were defined by a greater than 30% deviation in ranking between residents and students. Thematic assessment was utilized for the written evaluation of these outlier faculty to better understand the teaching qualities valued by students versus residents.
Results: On analysis of all faculty (n=43), women were ranked lower overall by students (mean female rank=28th, mean male rank=19th) and residents (mean female rank=26th, mean male rank=20th). The rankings of 14 outlier educators (6 women, 8 men) were incongruent when comparing residents and students (Figure 1). The greatest ranking drop from students to residents was a male (2nd to 41st), whereas the greatest gain from students to residents was a female (41st to 8th). Thematic analysis revealed students value inclusivity and approachability and demerit intimidation and isolation whereas residents appreciate autonomy and intraoperative calmness and disvalue indecisiveness.
Conclusions: Conventional gender biases suggest women are more nurturing and inclusive, yet emotional and indecisive whereas men are more calm and objective, yet detached and intimidating. Such biases would suggest, based on our thematic analysis, that students would value educational qualities of women whereas residents’ teaching preferences are aligned with those of males. Interestingly, despite variation in rankings between medical students and residents, both groups ranked women lower. It is unclear why students and residents assess women as less effective teachers but perhaps an unconscious bias exists. Further work is needed to understand these disparities and why they persist. This will allow for educational improvements for students, residents, and faculty educators of all genders.
