title: Chairperson and faculty gender in academic emergency medicine departments.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Despite the influx of female physicians in academic medicine departments, there are a small number of women in faculty and departmental leadership positions in emergency medicine (EM). The objective of this study was to determine if the gender of the chairperson of an academic EM department is associated with the gender of the residency program director (RPD) and gender proportion of its faculty.
  
  
  METHODS
  This was a retrospective analysis of 133 academic EM departments using the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine online residency catalog, program Web site, or e-mail. Main outcome measures were proportion of female EM faculty and gender of the RPD.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Data were available for 133 academic departments. Women chaired 7.5% (n = 10) of departments and comprised 22.3% of all faculty and 15.0% (n = 20) of RPD positions. EM departments that were chaired by women had a significantly higher percentage of female faculty compared with those led by men (31% vs. 22%; p = 0.01). Similarly, departments that were chaired by women had a significantly higher proportion of female RPDs compared with those chaired by men (50% vs. 12%; p < 0.01). Compared with departments chaired by men, the RPD was 5.0 times (95% confidence interval = 1.9 to 27.8; p < 0.01) more likely to be a woman if the chairperson was also a woman.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  An academic EM department was more likely to have a higher proportion of female faculty and a female RPD when the department chairperson was female.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Arkansas, Little Rock, AR, USA. chengdavid@uams.edu
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Promes
authors.forename: Kathleen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Clem
authors.forename: Anand
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shah
authors.forename: Ricardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pietrobon
mesh_terms: D004635:Emergency Medicine / Q000193:education* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005180:Faculty, Medical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007857:Leadership; D008297:Male; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012577:Schools, Medical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017678:Sex Distribution; D014481:United States