Study: Unequal introductions may cause discrepancies in how female, male physicians are treated

Recent findings suggest that when introduced by a male colleague, female physicians are referred to by their professional title on first reference only 49.2 percent of the time during Internal Medicine Grand Rounds, according to The Washington Post.

The study, published in Journal of Women's Health, examined archived videos of 321 speaker introductions and 124 Internal Medicine Grand Rounds from 2012 through 2014 at Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic Health System campuses in Arizona and Minnesota. Participants held MD, PhD, or MD/PhD degrees.

An analysis of the video footage revealed female introducers were more likely to use professional titles when introducing any speaker on first reference than their male colleagues. Men, when introducing a male speaker, used a professional title 72 percent of the time, but described a female colleague by a professional title 49.2 percent of the time.

The inequity in introductions has broader implications on how male and female physicians are seen by their peers, the study's authors note. They suggest unequal introductions may amplify feelings of isolation and marginalization by female faculty members in academic medicine.

"It gets down to perception of expertise, perception of competence," said Julia Files, MD, an associate professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic's Arizona campus and lead author of the study. "We know that in other settings, choices of words really impact women’s progress in careers."

Mayo Clinic administrators plan to create new speaker guidelines for introductions at grand rounds, according to the report. One of the guidelines will stipulate all speakers must be referred to as "doctor" on first reference.

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