Current Status of Gender and Racial/ Ethnic Disparities Among Academic Emergency Medicine Physicians

Abstract

Objective

A 2010 survey identified disparities in salaries by gender and underrepresented minorities (URM). With an increase in the EM workforce since, we aimed to 1) Describe the current status of academic EM workforce by gender, race and rank, and 2) Evaluate if disparities still exist in salary or rank by gender.

Methods

Information on demographics, rank, clinical commitment, and base and total annual salary for full-time faculty members in U.S. academic EDs were collected in 2015 via the Academy of Administrators in Academic Emergency Medicine (AAAEM) Salary Survey. Multiple linear regression was used to compare salary by gender while controlling for confounders.

Results

Response rate was 47% (47/101), yielding data on 1371 full-time faculty; 33% women, 78% white, 4% black, 5% Asian, 3% Asian Indian, 4% other, and 7% unknown race. Comparing white race to nonwhite, 62% vs. 69% were instructor/assistant, 23% vs. 20% were associate, and 15% vs. 10% were full professors. Comparing women to men, 74% vs. 59% were instructor/assistant, 19% vs. 24% were associate, and 7% vs. 17% were full professors. Of 113 Chair/Vice-Chair positions, only 15% were women, and 18% were nonwhite. Women were more often fellowship trained (37% vs. 31%), less often core-faculty (59% vs. 64%), with fewer administrative roles (47% vs. 57%) (all p<0.05) but worked similar clinical hours (mean 1069 vs. 1051 hours). Mean overall salary was $278,631 (SD ± 68,003). The salary of women was $19,418 (SD ± 3,736) less than men (p < 0.001), even after adjusting for race, region, rank, years of experience, clinical hours, core faculty status, administrative roles, board certification, and fellowship training.

Conclusions

In 2015, disparities in salary and rank persist among full-time U.S. academic EM faculty. There were gender and URM disparities in rank and leadership positions. Women earned less than men regardless of rank, clinical hours, or training. Future efforts should focus on evaluating salary data by race and developing system-wide practices to eliminate disparities.

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