Gender bias in applicant selection?

[OptimusPrime]

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So I was told in the past that given the lower percentage of females in this field programs tend to actively seek female applicants to point where there is a selection bias when compared to equally matched male applicants.

As I’m going through the process now I have several good female friends whom I’m fairly aware of their professional accomplishments and so far they have averaged 3-4more interviews than my male friends with similar if not better resume.

I just wanted to know if anyone else across the nation (AMG or IMG) has noticed such a trend or if I’m just being paranoid.

 

[tibor75]

So I was told in the past that given the lower percentage of females in this field programs tend to actively seek female applicants to point where there is a selection bias when compared to equally matched male applicants.

As I’m going through the process now I have several good female friends whom I’m fairly aware of their professional accomplishments and so far they have averaged 3-4more interviews than my male friends with similar if not better resume.

I just wanted to know if anyone else across the nation (AMG or IMG) has noticed such a trend or if I’m just being paranoid.

oh yeah, but it's probably not as bad as it sounds. A mediocre female applicant probably won't get in. But a solid female applicant, especially one with a pedigree that suggests a strong interest in academics, will get an interview anywhere. And she will likely be offered a faculty position anywhere as well if she does a good job. Look online at any academic program's faculty list. You'll be lucky to find more than 3 females for every 20 males.

 

[dragonfly99]

I don't know guys...I had a pretty decent app., publications, etc. and I didn't get interviews "everywhere". I think this is a common misconception among male applicants, just b/c cardiology is so damned competitive for ANYONE who is trying to get in...the male applicants think, "Well if I didn't get the interview, there must be some unfairness here!". Well I can tell you I didn't get interviews at quite a few places either, and sometimes at places less competitive vs. the places that DID give me interviews. It's kind of like med school applications...sometimes the whole process seems random.

I think there are places that are looking for qualified women, and there are places that still don't want women, so it kind of balances out. I can tell you that I interviewed at a place that had had one woman EVER in it's program, and I got the distinct feeling some of the faculty wanted to keep it that way 🙂
Also I was asked at multiple interviews about marital status and plans for children, etc. so I think being female can hurt you in the sense that some faculty assume that you are going to get the fellowship spot and then start popping out babies, leaving them with scheduling problems.

There was one other woman @my program who also interviewed for cardiology, and I think we both got a similar number of interviews as some of the guys in our program, and we were pretty much similar applicants, in terms of how competitive we should be.

I do think it's true that they'll try to recruit you for faculty once you are there, but they pretty much try to recruit the guys, too...I mean it's hard to recruit faculty in general, so anybody who shows an iota of interest in academics is likely to get recruited. Some hospitals have started up "women's heart health" clinics/centers and they often like to have female docs to work as cardiologists in these types of clinics...

I think who writes your LOR's and how many research publications and where you do residency has a >> influence on getting interviews than gender or some other minor factor.

 

[tibor75]

I
Also I was asked at multiple interviews about marital status and plans for children, etc. so I think being female can hurt you in the sense that some faculty assume that you are going to get the fellowship spot and then start popping out babies, leaving them with scheduling problems..

that sucks, because questions like that are strictly off-limits and could be the basis for a lawsuit.

 

[dragonfly99]

Yes, it does suck. Realistically, nobody is going to sue them nor overtly complain about this...that would be stupid and = to saying, "I don't want this fellowship spot". However, there actually was a resolution at one of the recent AMA meetings where the AMA resolved that residency and fellowship programs should ask about ethnic origin, marital status, etc. during interviews. Apparently a lot of people get asked about these topics during interviews because there was a lot of debate and comments about this.

There were actually some secondary apps that had questions about married/single and number of children on the application.
And yes, it does suck...particularly as a lot of intervews were 20 minute interviews I don't want to spend 5 or 10 minutes of it explaining that I am not married and don't plan to have a baby during clinical fellowship. I don't like being thought of as a uterus with legs, though I do understand the concern/worry about the possibility of having someone out for maternity leave. However, I would have preferred to spend the interview talking about my research and why I was qualified for the fellowship. I did notice that more of the higher tier university programs did NOT ask about my marital status, whereas I felt some of the ones that were a bit weaker did. I'm not sure the significance of this, except that perhaps the stronger university programs have more to lose by making a bad impression on people or using any type of pressure tactics/stress interview tactics.

 

[synergy32]

I believe gender does play some factor here. I know a colleague of mine who had the exact same publications as me (we did the same research with the same person, I actually have more now) and pretty much got the same letters or rec, however I can say I have gotten less than one quarter of the number of interviews.

So pretty much with all things being equal, it doesn't add up, unless it is a factor that is considered. I am not saying there is anything wrong with that, especially in a male dominated profession. However, i am not sure what other explanation there could be for the discrepancy.

 

[OptimusPrime]

the reason why i posted originally was because a good friend and co-researcher with similar resume (actually I was first author on 70% of her publications) was getting interviews over me in head to head comparison for enough programs to raise my concern.
I know her letter writers, background and except for gender we're pretty similar on paper. Again on agree with Tibor that this probably only play a factor for good female applicants in head to head comparison and probably is not going to make a great impact if the applicant is weak to begin with.
Furthermore I agree with Synergy in that given the male dominance of the field a little bias toward good female applicants is understandable but when you're in the thick of things trying to secure a fellowship it can be a cause of annoyance. Just my two cents.

 

[dragonfly99]

My experience was different. There were several female applicants from my residency program, and we got the same (or maybe less, in the case of one of the people) vs. male applicants, given similar stats and publications. If you look at the acceptance rates for male and female applicants, they are very very similar (haven't seen the data for last year's match, but I did for the one a couple of years ago). If there was as much bias as you all state, the match rate for female applicants should be >> that for male applicants. I also would argue that women who apply to cardiology are a self-selected group willing to go to great lengths to get the fellowship (not that it's not a hard one to get for anyone, male or female) and I think there were several qualified women in my residency who opted out of cardiology either because they didn't want the lifestyle, or because they were discouraged from doing cardiology.

I also feel like a I got "hard balled" at a couple of interviews (though not most of them) by older male attendings who asked a lot of questions about whether I was married and had kids, or wanted any kids, etc. I really doubt all the guys at the same interview got a similar grilling.

I think there is disagreement among cardiology faculty about whether it is good to recruit female applicants vs. not. Some would like to have as few women as possible (and perhaps will try to keep us out of their particular programs), some don't care either way, and some feel that they want to recruit women (perhaps even preferentially). Most I think don't care...so I disagree that there is systematic "affirmative action" going on at a systems level, and I didn't see any evidence of that.

I think when people don't get all the cardiology fellowship interview invites they want, they start wondering why. It happened to me, and I think it happens to most all other applicants. The truth is that a lot of the applicants are similar, both on paper and in terms of strength of letters of recommendation, and it turns out to be tiny reasons (or no reason, really, in a lot of cases) that determines why one applicant gets an interview at a particular place, and another one does not.

A lot of people don't get a lot of interviews, or do get interviews but then don't match in cardiology. It happened to me, and for no apparent/obvious reason. I generally don't act like a troll at interviews, had high USMLE scores, decent LOR's (not from famous people, but decent), 1 real publication and a couple of wimpy ones (i.e. poster presentations, etc.) and was from a well pretty good university IM program.

 

[dr niceguy]

I don't know about some tacit "systemic affirmative action" so to speak, but I do believe there is a growing recognition amongst program directors across all specialties that diveristy (gender or ortherwise) is actually an important component of their professional identity. I think its been demonstrated the best amongst surgical specialties where women are clearly more of a presence now than they were 20 years ago, in the most traditional of 'the all boys club' in medicine. And we are beginning to see it in difficult non surgical fields such as cardiology as well, particularly interventional.

Personally, I can see why a very well qualified female applicant would be desirable (pardon the pun) for programs. There is certainly a need for more leading female academic faculty and defintiely a need for more research in cardiovascular health of women- which, take as you will, has been led by impressive female cardiologists.

Despite being in the throes of the application process, I can see why superstar females will be highly recruited, perhaps more so than me- who incidentally is not a superstar. That said, I don't think they are given an advantage and I agree with dragonfly that at the end of the day M or F, you have to be qualified. I'm sure they are also asked unfair questions, which is quite a shame.

 

[dragonfly99]

I agree that some cardiology fellowships are seeking diversity of various kinds. The one @the hospital where I did residency I think holds a spot each year for an underrepresented minority and/or FMG.

I do think some programs want to make sure they have at least 1 female in their program, otherwise they fear it might drive away female applicants. I have to admit that when I got to a place that has 5 or 6 fellows/year and they don't have even one woman in the 3 or 4 years worth of fellows, it did kind of make me wonder why (? self selection or something about the program that is not good if you are female). It wasn't a deal breaker by any means but it was something I wanted to explore more, since about 18% of cards fellows are women. The place where I matched I'm not sure if there are even any women in their program right now, but they all just seemed incredibly cool and it was obvious they were open-minded about many things and I just could never see gender being an issue for me there, even if I end up being the only female fellow. However, I interviewed at one program where they had had one African American guy EVER (despite it being in the South), and one or two women EVER in the history of their program since it started back in the 1960's or 1970's. That's << statistics would ever predict. Every single fellow was a white male and most went to similar colleges and were from one region of the country. Ditto for the faculty (except they did have one woman who was also one of the two they'd ever had go through their program).

For whatever reason, a lot of female patients want a female cardiologist. I personally think it's kind of silly, and I don't personally care whether any of my docs (including ob/gyn) are male vs. female. However, I guess that for a lot of patients they feel intimidated by the medical system, and thus some gravitate to someone they see as being "like" themselves. I don't think this made it easier for me to get cardiology fellowship, but I think it will probably make it easier for me to get a job when I'm done (clinical cardiology, I mean). That is unless the private practice guys don't want to work with me because of the "risk" of me having a kid or two at some point down the line.