Gender Disparity in Composition and Compensation Among Maryland Hospital Executives

Introduction: Senior executive positions in hospitals have traditionally been held by men, and do not reflect the gender, racial, ethnic, and cultural diversities of the communities they serve. Despite sex parity in medical school graduates, women remain underrepresented in hospital executive leadership positions. In this study, the authors examined differences in gender composition and compensation of Maryland hospital executives. Methods: The authors examined 47 Maryland hospitals’ publicly available tax forms from 2013-2018. Data collected included hospital revenue and executive positions’ count, salary, and gender. Executive positions included President and/or Chief Executive Officer (P/CEO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Chief Nursing Officer (CNO), and Chief Operating Officer (COO). All monetary values were inflation-adjusted to the 2017 dollar. Results: Women executives were underrepresented across most roles: P/CEO (41/272, 15%), CFO (72/260, 28%), CMO (28/182, 15%), and COO (44/147, 30%). CNO showed a higher proportion of women executives (129/140, 92%). There were no significant changes in the proportion of women executives over the study period (p=0.19). Men CNO’s had significantly higher salaries as a percentage of hospital revenue (0.16% vs 0.12%, p=0.04) and men COOs had significantly higher salaries as a percentage of hospital positive profit (3.65% vs 2.24%, p\u3c0.01). Conclusion: Data from Maryland hospitals suggest that women remain underrepresented in healthcare executive roles. Further, women executives are generally undercompensated compared to men in similar roles. This study further highlights the need for mentorship and dedicated career pathways to improve women representation in leadership roles in healthcare

Effect of Faculty Diversity on Minority Student Populations Matching into Orthopaedic Surgery Residency Programs

Background:. Greater faculty diversity within orthopaedic residency programs has been associated with an increased application rate from students of similarly diverse demographic backgrounds. It is unknown whether these underrepresented student populations have an equitable likelihood of being highly ranked and matching at these programs. Thus, we sought to evaluate the relationship between faculty and resident diversity, with a specific focus on sex, racial/ethnic groups that are underrepresented in medicine (URiM), and international medical graduates (IMGs). Methods:. The American Orthopaedic Association's Orthopaedic Residency Information Network database was used to collect demographic data on 172 US residency programs. Linear regression analyses were performed to determine the relationship between the proportion of female or URiM attendings at a program and the proportion of female, URiM, or IMG residents or top-ranked applicants (≥25 rank). URiM was defined as “racial and ethnic populations that are underrepresented in the medical profession relative to their numbers in the general population.” Results:. A mean of 13.55% of attendings were female and 14.14% were URiM. A larger fraction of female attendings was a positive predictor of female residents (p < 0.001). Similarly, a larger percentage of URiM attendings was a positive predictor of URiM residents (p < 0.001), as well as of URiM (p < 0.001) and IMG (p < 0.01) students being ranked highly. There was no significant association between URiM attendings and female residents/overall top-ranked applicants, or vice versa. Conclusions:. Residency programs with more female attendings were more likely to match female residents, and programs with more URiM attendings were more likely to highly rank URiM and IMG applicants as well as match URiM residents. Our findings indicate that orthopaedic surgery residencies may be more likely to rank and match female or URiM students at similar proportions to that of their faculty. This may reflect minority students preferentially applying to programs with more diverse faculty because they feel a better sense of fit and are likely to benefit from a stronger support system. Level of Evidence:. III