Launching a Women-Focused Faculty and Trainee Development Program

Women in the fields of radiology and medical physics lack advancement opportunities and are under-represented in leadership positions. There is a paucity of research on specific interventions to address this problem.

We developed and launched the "Women-Focused Faculty and Trainee Development Program" at an academic university to improve gender-based knowledge gaps contributing to lack of promotional advancement and leadership opportunities. An eight-event curriculum was developed based on educational gaps identified on pre-intervention surveys; assessment of goal fulfillment was determined by post-intervention surveys.

Pre-intervention, 62% of women faculty were satisfied with their pace of professional advancement and 69% believed they would be promoted at an appropriate time compared to 100% post-intervention (p-value 0.008 and 0.02, respectively). The pre-intervention survey demonstrated that the top three obstacles to professional development were lack of adequate mentorship, inadequate resources for research, and limited understanding of promotion and tenure. Post-intervention data demonstrated that 88% of women faculty and trainees believed the program helped them achieve their goals. The majority of all program participants (both men and women) agreed their knowledge had increased on all curriculum topics. There were differences in perceptions of gender inequities between men and women on several topics including whether fewer women pursue academic promotion, whether fewer women do not pursue promotion due to lack of institutional/departmental support, and whether there are departmental discrepancies in salary, all statistically significant.

With implementation of a formal development program, significant positive impacts on women's ability to achieve professional goals, gain mentorship opportunities, and improve satisfaction with their pace of professional advancement can be achieved.