Student Evaluation of Faculty Physicians: Gender Differences in Teaching Evaluations.

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Gender Studies in Medicine
• Academic Medicine

Background:

• Medical student evaluations are crucial for assessing teaching quality.
• Understanding potential gender-based biases in these evaluations is important for promoting equity in academic medicine.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate differences in medical student teaching evaluations between male and female clinical physician faculty.
• To identify if gender influences student perceptions of teaching quality.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 14,107 teaching evaluations from clinical rotations (surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, internal medicine) between 2008-2012.
• Focus on student ratings of "overall quality of teaching" using a 5-point scale.
• Linear mixed-effects models used to compare evaluation scores by faculty gender.

Main Results:

• Female physicians received significantly lower mean evaluation scores than male physicians in all four rotations.
• The largest score discrepancy was observed in surgery (males=4.23, females=4.01).
• Significant differences were also found in pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, and internal medicine.

Conclusions:

• Female physicians consistently receive lower teaching evaluations compared to their male counterparts.
• These findings underscore subtle gender-based differences in student evaluations.
• The study provides evidence of ongoing disparities for women in academic medicine.