Gender bias in medical education: A scoping review

This scoping review summarises five decades of research on gender bias in subjective performance evaluations of medical trainees.

A medical librarian searched PubMed, Ovid Embase, Scopus, Web of Science and Cochrane DBSR in June 2020. Two researchers independently reviewed each abstract to determine if it met inclusion criteria (original research article investigating gender bias in subjective medical trainee evaluations by staff). References from selected articles were also reviewed for inclusion. Data were extracted from the articles, and summary statistics were performed.

A total of 212 abstracts were reviewed, and 32 met criteria. Twenty (62.5%) evaluated residents, and 12 (37.5%) studied medical students. The majority of studies on residents were Internal Medicine (n = 8, 40.0%) and Surgery (n = 7, 35.0%). All studies were performed in North America and were either retrospective or observational. Nine (28.0%) were qualitative, and 24 (75.0%) were quantitative. The majority of studies were published in the last decade (n = 21, 65.6%). Twenty (62.5%) studies documented gender bias, of which 11 (55%) found that males received higher quantitative performance evaluations and 5 (25%) found that females received higher evaluation scores. The remaining 4 (20%) reported gender differences in qualitative evaluations.

Most studies detected gender bias in subjective performance evaluations of medical trainees, with a majority favouring males. There is a paucity of studies on bias in medical education with a lack of standardised approach to investigating bias.