What determines if someone fits in with a group or not? What internal decision making regarding “fit” might occur when a woman is considering various medical specialties? Two researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis (WUSTL) are looking into those topics.
To expedite their efforts, Cara Cipriano, M.D. an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at WUSTL, and Kate Gerull, a medical student at the school, have received a $10,000 grant from the American Medical Association (AMA) Women Physicians Section and the AMA Foundation to conduct a multicenter study of gender factors that may influence students’ decisions to pursue careers in orthopedic surgery. The award is from the Joan F. Giambalvo Fund for the Advancement of Women in Research.
Their project is titled “Gendered differences in medical students’ sense of belonging in Orthopedic Surgery: A multi-institution study.”
The researchers will be surveying and interviewing medical students at several schools to determine whether a decreased sense of social fit might be discouraging some women from going into orthopedics.
Kate Gerull told OTW, “I came into medicine thinking I was going to pursue general surgery. I never considered orthopedic surgery. My perception of the field was that it was dominated by men and that I would not belong. But in my third year of medical school I did an orthopedic rotation and fell in love with it. Then I thought, ‘Why did it take me four years to get into an orthopedic OR?’”
For their study, the researchers will be using validated scales to study fit and belonging.
Gerull notes, “There is the perception that you have to be physically strong (the carpentry link). This gets back to our own socialization and our feelings about who goes into the field. We will be surveying medical students from the first through the fourth years to see if perhaps the concept of belonging changes over time.”
“The data show that belonging is something that can be intervened upon. Perhaps the next step is to identify lower levels of belonging and target those individuals who are having such experiences.”
And to the naysayers, Gerull says, “The literature indicates that diversity improves outcomes. This is not a ‘woman’s issue’ as we are all outcomes-driven when it comes to patient care.”
Dr. Cipriano commented to OTW, “We are in an exciting time for our field because we have recognized that increased diversity would be advantageous; however, we have not yet determined an effective strategy for accomplishing this goal. It is evident that diversification will not occur through a passive process. We must actually do something to make it happen.”
“Many of the historical barriers to women practicing medicine and surgery have been removed, and yet the percentage of women in orthopedics remains under 15%. By studying social fit and belonging, we hope to identify some fundamental issues that may prevent young women from considering careers in orthopedic surgery. We hypothesize that a lot of self-selection/de-selection occurs early in the process, either before or at the beginning of medical school. We want to gain a more refined understanding of the pipeline…at what points do these women lose or gain interest in orthopedics, and what can we do to change that?”
The researchers hope to have preliminary results next summer.
