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The National Initiative on Gender, Culture and Leadership in Medicine, (also known as “C - Change” for cultural change) addresses the imperative of developing women and under-represented minority faculty members’ full potential and leadership in academic medicine in the United States. The project engages five medical schools in action research to analyze the current situation and to facilitate cultural change so that all faculty members can contribute fully. Participating organizations are Duke University School of Medicine, George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Tufts University School of Medicine, University of Minnesota Medical School and University of New Mexico School of Medicine. Brandeis University is directing the five-year study. The C - Change Initiative is sponsored by the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation with supplemental funding from a collaborative federal partnership headed by the DHHS Office of Public Health and Science Office on Women's Health, the Office of Minority Health, the National Institutes of Health Office of Research on Women's Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Health Resources and Services Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Dorothy Tavris Fund of Brandeis University Women's Studies Research Center Scholars Program.
Background
The lack of advancement for women and under-represented minority faculty members in academic medicine has proved to be a persistent problem. This Initiative is designed to analyze the problem in the overall context of the culture of academic medicine, and then to identify and implement ways that this culture might be changed to support the advancement of women and under-represented minority members in medical schools, especially into leadership positions.
The numbers behind the study are sobering. Despite a steady increase since 1980 of the proportion of female medical students to 50 per cent, women have not assumed corresponding numbers in senior and leadership roles in U.S. medical schools. Between 1980 and 2004, the proportion of full professors who are women only rose from 9 to 14% in clinical science departments and to 23% in basic science departments(compared with 28% and 43% respectively of male faculty). Currently, 17% of tenured faculty are women and only 12% of women have achieved full professorship compared to 32% of male faculty (AAMC). In medical schools, there is an average of 35 female and 188 male professors per school. Only 8% of clinical science department chairs and 13% of basic science department chairs (approximately 1.7 per school) are female and many schools have never had a female department chair. About 7% of deans (not including interims) are women (AAMC).
Against this backdrop, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Institutes of Health have called “for an urgent broad national effort” to maximize the potential of women faculty in medicine and the biomedical sciences. Benefits of women’s advancement in academic medicine include:
• The potential of women in the biomedical sciences has yet to be realized.
• Science and math abilities of women and men are equal and underutilized.
• Interdisciplinary and collaborative work is more aligned with women’s preferences.
• Women have championed preventive medicine and women’s health research.
• Women’s more highly developed interpersonal skills enhance quality of care and professionalism.
• Women’s styles of leading are more congruent with modern theories of effective leadership.
• Women should be role models in training institutions.
• Women are a pathway to a more diverse workforce
The C - Change project has a major focus on women in academic medicine. The Initiative also focuses on the lack of advancement of under-represented minority faculty in medical schools. Women, under-represented minority and generalist faculty share some attributes of outsider groups in academic medicine and as such are part of this study. Under-represented minority faculty in medical schools help achieve awareness and appreciation of cultural differences, are more likely to address health care disparities, promote research inclusive of the needs of minority groups, and enhance multiculturalism in medical education.
C - Change Specific Aims
Identify the personal and institutional reasons for the persistent under-representation of women and under-represented minority faculty in leadership and senior positions in academic medicine.
Implement and describe the functioning of a Learning Action Network that links five participating medical schools and engages them in a group process to drive change at these demonstration sites.
Establish positive change interventions in the five demonstration medical school sites.
Define criteria for success in realizing the full potential of women, under-represented minority and generalist faculty.
Evaluate the success of the Learning Action Network and the interventions implemented at the demonstration sites.
Develop and disseminate national recommendations and materials to foster the wide adoption in academic medicine of innovative programs, practices and policies based on validated successes at the demonstration sites.
Research
Learning Action Network
National Advisory Group
Linda Pololi, MBBS, MRCP, Principal Investigator
Senior Scientist and Resident Scholar
National Initiative on Gender, Culture and Leadership in Medicine: C - Change
Women's Studies Research Center
Brandeis University
415 South Street, Mail Stop 088
Waltham, MA 02454
Telephone: 781-736-8132
Fax: 781-736-8135
lpololi@brandeis.edu
Kerri O'Connor, BA
C - Change Project Administrator
Telephone: 781-736-8128
Fax: 781-736-8135
kerrio@brandeis.edu
Patricia Plante, BS, PHR
C - Change Program Administrator
Telephone: 781-736-8132
Fax: 781-736-8135
pplante@brandeis.edu