Department of Pharmacy, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.
Department of Biomedical Statistics and Informatics, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.
Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2021 Jun 7;78(12):1118-1125. doi: 10.1093/ajhp/zxab150.
Letters of recommendation (LORs) are highly regarded components of pharmacy residency applications, as they provide insight into an applicant's character and capabilities. In other medical fields, differences in language have been reported for letters written for female and male applicants; however, data on gender differences in LORs for pharmacy residency applications are currently lacking.
LORs for applicants to our institution's postgraduate year 1 pharmacy residency program for the 2019-2020 academic year were extracted and processed by a natural language processing service. Words within 18 categories were identified and counted for each LOR. Total word count was also compared.
Of the 473 LORs included for analysis, 320 (67.7%) were written for female applicants and 153 (32.3%) were written for male applicants. Approximately two-thirds of all writers were women for both female and male applicants. In comparing letters for women and men, there was a statistically significant difference in the percentage of LORs that contained terms in categories described as gendered, solitary/reserved, and desire. There was no statistically significant difference in total word count or in the presence of words in other categories such as grindstone, standout, agentic, or communal. When controlling for grade point average, writer gender, duration that the writer knew the applicant, and the writer's professional position, there were no changes to the statistical findings.
Letters written for female and male applicants were largely similar with regard to length and word categories utilized. While no clear gender bias was found when evaluating pharmacy residency LORs, writers must continue to assess their implicit biases and how those biases might affect a candidate's application.
推荐信（LOR）是药剂学住院医师申请中备受重视的组成部分，因为它们可以深入了解申请人的性格和能力。在其他医学领域，据报道，针对女性和男性申请人的信件在语言上存在差异；然而，目前缺乏关于药剂学住院医师申请中 LOR 性别差异的数据。
提取并由自然语言处理服务处理了我们机构 2019-2020 学年研究生一年级药学住院医师项目申请人的 LOR。确定了 18 个类别中的单词并对每个 LOR 进行了计数。还比较了总字数。
在纳入分析的 473 封 LOR 中，320 封（67.7%）是为女性申请人写的，153 封（32.3%）是为男性申请人写的。对于女性和男性申请人，大约三分之二的作者都是女性。在比较女性和男性的信件时，在包含被描述为性别、孤独/保守和渴望的类别中的术语的 LOR 百分比方面存在统计学上的显著差异。在总字数或在其他类别（如磨石、突出、代理或社区）中存在单词方面没有统计学上的显著差异。当控制平均绩点、作者性别、作者了解申请人的时间以及作者的专业职位时，统计结果没有变化。
就长度和使用的单词类别而言，为女性和男性申请人写的信件基本相似。虽然在评估药学住院医师 LOR 时没有发现明显的性别偏见，但作者必须继续评估他们的隐性偏见以及这些偏见如何影响候选人的申请。
