Academic Careers in Medicine: a Sex-Related Analysis of Career Goals

Aim of the study For female and male physicians of the clinical-academic mid-level staff, working conditions as well as the attitude towards profession and career play a decisive role. For years, there has been an increasing proportion of women in medicine. Despite this increase, a significant sex incongruence is still evident, especially in academic medicine. The aim of this work was to analyze current opinions of female and male physicians on sex-related aspects for career.Methods By means of an online survey, medical mid-level staff from university and peripheral hospitals were asked about professional biographical as well as career-related topics and the data analyzed in terms of the sexes.Results Compared to their male counterparts, female physicians had lower career goals and mainly aimed to qualify as senior physicians. Women planned to have families and raise children earlier in their careers. Men were more likely to have their professional careers in mind during the same time period. Although only just under 47% of respondents considered an academic career to be worthwhile, 65% continued to rate the acquisition of an academic title highly. When evaluating equal treatment by superiors, female physicians tended to feel disadvantaged in their professional careers compared to male physicians. Thus, physicians rated the treatment by their respective superiors as characterized by the quality of the work (44% for both genders of superiors) or dependent on sympathy (female superiors 30%; male superiors 24%). Female physicians, however, saw a preference for male colleagues in 37% of male superiors.Conclusion Despite a significantly larger proportion of women in medicine for decades, there is still an incongruence in sexes in favor of men in management positions. The professional and private goals of women and men differ significantly depending on their age decade. The academic career per se is increasingly losing importance, although the acquisition of academic degrees still seems to be desirable. Therefore, to improve the future of academic medicine, significant structural changes are needed to enable projectable career paths (e. g., tenure track, assistant professorship, young medical professionals model) for mid-level academic staff.

Automated summary

The aim of this study was to analyze the opinions of female and male physicians on career-related aspects. Through an online survey, it was found that female physicians had lower career goals and primarily aimed to become senior physicians, while male physicians focused more on career development. Female physicians felt disadvantaged compared to male physicians in terms of equal treatment by superiors. Therefore, significant structural changes are needed to improve gender equality and provide predictable career paths for mid-level medical staff.