Women in medical leadership: has the COVID‐19 crisis heightened the glass cliff?

Abstract

Women in medical leadership: has the COVID-19 crisis heightened the glass cliff? F or over 30 years, the Medical Journal of Australia has published articles identifying gender inequities that contribute to a persisting glass ceiling in women's representation in medical leadership. 1,2 The close of 2021 saw an unprecedented and welcome trend -women occupied many highly visible medical leadership roles in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. This included appointed roles, such as jurisdictional chief health officers, but also elected roles, such as presidents of specialty medical colleges, including the colleges for general practice, physicians, surgeons, emergency medicine, anaesthetics, psychiatry, and intensive care. 3 While this achievement should be celebrated, we cannot yet claim gender parity in formal leadership roles across the health system. 4 In this article, we present the possibility of the glass cliff phenomenon in exploring the rise of women medical leaders during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and the need for systematised approaches to better support women leaders.