C.D. Hobgood is professor of emergency medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana; ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4860-1385 .
C. Draucker is the Angela Barron McBride Professor of Psychiatric Nursing, Indiana University School of Nursing, Indianapolis, Indiana; ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9844-351X .
Acad Med. 2022 Nov 1;97(11):1656-1664. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000004772. Epub 2022 Jun 14.
Women have made significant gains in leadership across all disciplines in academic medicine but have not yet achieved leadership parity as department chairs. The authors investigated the challenges experienced by one cohort of women department chairs in emergency medicine (EM) and the solutions they proposed to address these challenges.
The authors conducted a qualitative descriptive study of 19 of 20 possible current and emeritus emergency medicine women department chairs at academic medical centers between April and December 2020. Participant interviews elicited self-reported demographic characteristics and narrative responses to a semistructured interview template that focused on the role of gender in their leadership and career trajectories. Interviews were transcribed, blinded, and iteratively coded and categorized.
The analysis demonstrated 4 common challenges and 5 enacted or proposed solutions. The challenges discussed by the participants were: feeling unprepared for the role of department chair, being one of few women in leadership, inheriting unhealthy department cultures, and facing negative faculty reactions. The individual- and institutional-level solutions discussed by the participants were: gaining and maintaining confidence (individual), maintaining accountability and mission alignment (individual), facilitating teamwork (individual), supporting women's leadership (institution), and creating safe leadership cultures (institution).
Women department chairs in EM were successful academic leaders despite confronting several challenges to their leadership. Considering the study findings through the lens of the concept of second-generation gender bias further illuminates the influence of gender on leadership in academic medicine. These findings suggest several possible strategies that can combat gender bias, increase gender parity among academic medicine's leadership, and improve the leadership experience for women leaders.
女性在学术医学的各个领域的领导地位都取得了重大进展，但在系主任职位上仍未实现领导平等。作者研究了一个队列的女性急诊医学系主任所面临的挑战，以及她们为解决这些挑战而提出的解决方案。
作者对 2020 年 4 月至 12 月期间学术医疗中心的 20 名现任和名誉急诊医学女系主任中的 19 名进行了定性描述性研究。参与者访谈引出了自我报告的人口统计特征和对半结构化访谈模板的叙述性回应，重点关注性别在她们的领导和职业轨迹中的作用。访谈被转录、匿名、迭代编码和分类。
分析显示了 4 个共同的挑战和 5 个实施或提出的解决方案。参与者讨论的挑战包括：对系主任角色没有准备，在领导层中为数不多的女性，继承了不健康的部门文化，以及面临负面的教职员工反应。参与者讨论的个人和机构层面的解决方案包括：获得和保持信心（个人）、保持问责制和任务一致性（个人）、促进团队合作（个人）、支持女性领导（机构）和创建安全的领导文化（机构）。
尽管面临领导方面的若干挑战，女性急诊医学系主任仍是成功的学术领导者。通过第二代性别偏见的概念来考虑研究结果，进一步阐明了性别对学术医学领导的影响。这些发现提出了几种可能的策略，可以打击性别偏见，增加学术医学领导中的性别平等，并改善女性领导者的领导体验。
