Fewer women choose careers in academic medicine, researchers find

Fewer women than men choose careers in academic medicine, and junior doctors’ interest in the area is waning, researchers have found. The findings came after a report published last month, which showed that a lack of women in academic medicine has led to some areas of medicine not being properly studied.1

The team behind the new study also found that doctors of Asian ethnicity and doctors who had studied for an intercalated degree were more likely than others to pursue an academic career.2

Researchers from the University of Oxford surveyed three cohorts of medical graduates—from 2005, 2009, and 2012—one year after they had qualified. The 2005 cohort were also surveyed five years later in 2010.

The survey had response rates of 63% (3128/4939) from the 2005 cohort, 47% (2918/6250) from the 2009 cohort, and 46% (2413/5262) from the 2012 cohort; and 49% (2363/4841) of the 2005 cohort responded after five years.

The graduates were asked whether they had applied for an academic foundation year 2 (F2) placement and whether they intended to apply for an academic training post after F2. They were also asked whether they intended to practise medicine and whether they would take on teaching or research responsibilities alongside their clinical post.

The researchers found that, when looking at all three cohorts together, more men than women wanted to apply for academic specialist training (12.0% v 5.2%). They also found that Asian doctors were more likely than other groups to apply for academic specialist training: 13% of Asian respondents wanted to apply, compared with 8.2% of white respondents. And a higher percentage of doctors who did an intercalated degree (5.6%) wanted a long term career as a clinical academic than those who did not (2.2%), the study found.

Medical schools were also found to influence junior doctors’ desire to apply for academic training. The researchers said, “Respondents from Oxbridge were more likely to want to apply for academic training (20.8%) than the overall average (9.4%).”

They found that respondents who said early in their career that they wanted to enter academic training did not always follow their intention through. “While very similar numbers of 2005 graduates surveyed in year 1 and year 5 intended to follow a clinical academic career, many who comprised the group of aspiring academics in years 1 and 5 were different individuals,” the researchers said. This finding demonstrated that “flexibility in moving into and out of academic training may be helpful to support doctors’ changing intentions in their early postgraduate years,” they added.

The number of F1 respondents intending to do specialty training dropped over time, the researchers found, and a lower proportion of F1s in the 2012 cohort intended to take up the specialty than in the 2005 cohort (3.9% v 4.2%). The researchers said the findings showed that “an interest in clinical academic careers, as a possible eventual careers destination, may be waning among junior doctors.”