Women faculty achieve promotion to full professor equivalent to men faculty in a subset of US academic pathology departments

Women faculty in academic medicine remain underrepresented at higher faculty ranks despite equal numbers of men and women medical students since 2003. This 2022 study asked if US academic pathology departments had achieved equity across academic rank for women faculty. The survey of 135 member departments of the Association for Academic Pathology requested data regarding chair characteristics, other department leaders’ number and gender, and faculty number and gender by academic rank and track. Sixty-four (47%) member departments responded. Twenty-three of the responding departments (36%) had equity of women and men full professors, defined as <5% difference women and men full professors as a percentage of total faculty. Departments with professor gender equity more often had a woman chair (P < 0.01), and a higher percentage of women faculty (P < 0.05), women on the research tenure track (P < 0.01), and tenured women faculty (P < 0.01). Unstructured interviews with a subset of department chairs did not identify significant differences between departments with and without professor gender equity, except that equity was more driven by the intention of the chair (P < 0.01) and less by dean or institutional influence (P < 0.01). Over one third of US academic pathology departments responding to the survey have achieved equity for women and men full professors in current academic medicine institutions. This equity success for women is lost when looking at data by specialty or nationally, rather than by department.