The Relationship Between Applicant Gender and Internal Medicine Residency Interview Scores

Gender inequity is widespread in academic medicine, including in the promotion, academic recognition, and compensation of female faculty.

To assess whether these inequities extend to the GME intern selection process, this study examines differences in the interview scores assigned to male and female applicants at one large internal medicine residency program.

Subjects include 1399 applicants who completed 3099 interviews for internship positions for the Brigham and Women's Hospital internal medicine residency in Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) cycles 2015-2016, 2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2019-2020. Unadjusted and multivariable linear regressions were used to assess the simultaneous effect of applicant gender, interviewer gender, and applicant academic characteristics on pre-interview, post-interview, and change in interview scores.

Our analysis included 3027 interviews (97.7%) of 1359 applicants (97.1%). There were no statistically significant differences in the interview scores assigned to female versus male applicants. This was true across pre-interview scores (difference = 0.03, P = .61), post-interview scores (difference = 0.00, P = .98), and change in interview scores (difference = 0.01, P = .24) as well as when adjusting for the baseline academic characteristics of both male and female applicants. This was also true when analyzing individual application years, individual residency tracks, and accounting for the gender of the faculty interviewers.

The findings do not support the presence of gender inequity in the interview scores assigned to male and female applicants included in this study.