2019 APDS SPRING MEETINGInvestigating Gender Differences in Faculty Evaluations by Trainees in a Gender-Balanced General Surgery Program
Section snippets
INTRODUCTION
Teaching evaluations from both medical students and residents are a vital component of career advancement for faculty, as these evaluations affect retention, tenure, and promotion.1, 2, 3 Prior research has shown that medical student evaluations are biased against female gender, particularly in surgery.4 The reason for this bias is unclear; however, there appears to be an association with the proportions of women within a given specialty. In specialties with a high percentage of women faculty,
MATERIAL AND METHODS
This study was deemed exempt from human research by our institutional review board. Two years (from August, 2016 to September, 2018) of faculty teaching evaluations by residents in a general surgery residency program were collected from the MedHub system. Medhub is a web-based residency management system. Part of this system allows for evaluations of faculty by trainees. Evaluations of faculty by residents within the MedHub system are anonymous. The department chair, program director
RESULTS
During the study period, there were a total of 3277 resident evaluations of the 26 faculty (Table 2). We reviewed a total of 1621 evaluations of female faculty (with range 13-333 evaluations per faculty member) and a total of 1656 evaluations of male faculty (with range 18-309 evaluations per faculty member). We adjusted for the number of encounters in order to minimize selection bias for those with very few (fewest = “Female 3” with 13 evaluations) or very many (“Female 7” with 333
DISCUSSION
This single institution, 2-year, retrospective study sought to determine whether there were gender differences in faculty evaluations by residents. Our program has a relatively high proportion of female faculty as compared to national averages. The study found that teaching evaluations were overall very positive, and there was no significant gender difference in evaluations with respect to “Overall value to training.” However, within subcategories of the 6 ACGME competencies, women had
CONCLUSION
In a general surgery residency program with a relatively gender-balanced faculty, there was no gender difference in the overall evaluation of faculty by residents. However, there were gender differences in specific domains. These findings suggest that gender balance in teaching faculty may help eliminate previously observed teaching evaluation bias in the traditionally male dominated fields. Future multi-institutional studies are needed to further investigate if similar findings persist amongst
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Cited by (0)
Presented at the APDS Meeting: Thursday, April 25 in Chicago, IL.