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Not Just Surviving, But Thriving: Overcoming Barriers to Career Advancement for Women Junior Faculty Clinician-Researchers

Academic Psychiatry volume 45, pages 180–184 (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

Objective

Although women attend medical school and residency at similar rates to men, they experience lower levels of academic career advancement than men. To inform national gender equity efforts, the authors conducted a qualitative study to explore potential gender differences in the career experiences of junior research faculty at a premier research institution.

Methods

Focus group discussions were conducted among women and men junior research faculty at the School of Medicine at an urban public research university. Participants were early mentored career development award recipients (K-awardees). Two same-gender focus groups of nine women and six men were conducted. Discussions focused on two domains: barriers to maintaining a research career and facilitators for research career development. Data were analyzed using ATLAS.ti and content analysis methods.

Results

Both women and men identified a challenging funding environment, difficulty bridging the salary gap, and lack of institutional support as barriers to maintaining their research careers. Women perceived two primary barriers to their career advancement that were different from their male counterparts: They were more likely to feel undervalued at the institution and to experience significant strains related to both childbearing and childcare. Women also reported receiving inadequate mentorship, having poor negotiation skills, and experiencing a lack of negotiation opportunities.

Conclusions

Academic research institutions should consider interventions that provide financial, emotional, and practical support to women research faculty, particularly during their childbearing and childrearing years.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Drs. Deborah Grady and Renee Navarro for their support in conducting this research. The authorship would also like to thank the leadership of the UCSF KL2 program for their support, specifically Doug Berman, Chris Ireland, and Kit Chelsea. The authors would also like to thank the women and men who generously gave their time to participate in this study and Jenica Cimino, James Harrison, Chuan-Mei Lee, and Marilyn Thomas for their conducting of and/or taking notes for these focus groups. Finally, the authors would like to thank UCSF Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator Nicholas Riano for his help preparing the manuscript.

Funding

The study was funded by the UCSF Clinical & Translational Science Institute (UCSF-CTSI) Career Development Program [UL1 TR000004 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institutes of Health (NIH)]. At the time this work was done, Dr. Mangurian was supported by an NIH Career Development Award K23MH093689, and the UCSF Hellman Fellows Award for Early-Career Faculty, and Dr. Bibbins-Domingo was supported by NIH K24DK103992.

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  1. University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Jennifer M. Zakaras, Urmimala Sarkar, Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo & Christina V. Mangurian

Authors
  1. Jennifer M. Zakaras
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  2. Urmimala Sarkar
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  3. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo
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  4. Christina V. Mangurian
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christina V. Mangurian.

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Zakaras, J.M., Sarkar, U., Bibbins-Domingo, K. et al. Not Just Surviving, But Thriving: Overcoming Barriers to Career Advancement for Women Junior Faculty Clinician-Researchers. Acad Psychiatry 45, 180–184 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40596-020-01361-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40596-020-01361-3

Keywords

  • Gender
  • Career advancement
  • Academic medicine
  • Focus group