Future Career Choices of Women Psychiatric Residents

Abstract

In an attempt to understand the paucity of women in psychiatric research, a descriptive pilot survey of women psychiatry residents in three residency programs was undertaken in 1992 to investigate the factors that influenced career choice and interest in research. Only 5% of the respondents intended to pursue an academic career with an emphasis on research; 60% listed a research career as their last choice. Significant factors that affect professional training and subsequent career choice included the women's desire for a nurturing training environment, availability of mentors/role models, and personal and family considerations.

Gender Differences in Publication Productivity Among Academic Urologists in the United States

“…The reviewers noted that women thought they had more difficulty obtaining a mentor than men, and many perceived that a mentor of the same gender would be more relatable. Several studies indicate that women have difficulty in finding same-sex mentors and role models, 21–23 and this may lead women to choose mentors of lower rank than men. 24 This difficulty may be compounded in urology where women are sparsely represented.…”

Women Psychiatrists and Research: So Far, no Further? An Australasian Perspective on Factors that Encourage and Hinder Women Psychiatrists' Involvement in Research

“…This underlies the usual hypotheses that family responsibilities account for gender differences in academic progress [18]. [22] found that family pressures could influence career choices in women psychiatric trainees but no specific associations emerged. Similar proportions were affected by the challenge of combining career and family, with no significant implications for research involvement.…”

“…In a comprehensive study by Leibenluft et al . By contrast, Mcginty et al [22] reported that institutional factors encouraging pursuit of a research career relate to a preference in women for a nurturing environment, while availability of research activity or prominent researchers are rated as least important. In a study of paediatricians, less institutional support of women to conduct research was considered to contribute to the lower rate of women in the senior faculty [32].…”

“…However, the sample size compared with most other surveys of this kind is substantial [22,34,35,37]. We have no way of identifying features of the non-responders since we opted for an anonymous survey.…”

Women psychiatrists and research: so far, no further? An Australasian perspective on factors that encourage and hinder women psychiatrists' involvement in research

“…A range of factors may account for the gender imbalance, including less access to mentoring opportunities [1,4,5,13], lack of role models [16,18], inflexible career structure [10,12], a promotion system biased against women [1], family responsibilities [4,8,10,18,19] and relatively fewer women in the higher echelons of academia [1,19]. Research on these aspects has been conducted largely in North America and the UK [2,4,13,20−23]. The picture in Australasian psychiatry is similar but has not been examined systematically.…”