Gender Disparities in Academic Outcomes Among Graduates of a Canadian MD-PhD Program

Women have traditionally been underrepresented in MD and MD-PhD training programs. Here, we describe the changing demographics of an MD-PhD Program over three distinct time intervals.

We designed a 64-question survey and sent it to 47 graduates of the McGill University MD-PhD program in Montréal, Québec, Canada, since its inception in 1985. We also sent a 23-question survey to the 24 students of the program in 2021. The surveys included questions related to demographics, physician-scientist training, research metrics, as well as academic and personal considerations.

We collected responses from August 2020 to August 2021 and grouped them into three intervals based on respondent graduation year: 1995-2005 (n = 17), 2006-2020 (n = 23) and current students (n = 24). Total response rate was 90.1% (n = 64/71). We found that there are more women currently in the program compared to the 1995-2005 cohort (41.7% increase, p<0.01). In addition, women self-reported as physician-scientists less frequently than men and reported less protected research time.

Overall, recent MD-PhD alumni represent a more diverse population compared with their earlier counterparts. Identifying barriers to training remains an important step in ensuring MD-PhD trainees become successful physician-scientists.