Washington, D.C., April 17, 2018 -- The American College of Physicians (ACP) published a paper today in the Annals of Internal Medicine that examines ways to achieve gender equity in the medical profession. Achieving Gender Equity in Physician Compensation and Career Advancement provides a set of recommendations aimed at addressing the challenges women in medicine face, including equity in physician compensation, career advancement, and bias.

“ACP published this paper to not only highlight the obstacles that our female members face, but also to identify solutions to the very real barriers women in medicine deal with every day,” said Jack Ende, MD, MACP, president, ACP. “As an organization, we are committed to acknowledging, and addressing, the unique challenges female physicians must confront over the course of their careers so that the internal medicine community is able to benefit from the full potential of female physicians in the workforce.”

Promoting gender equity and eliminating the inequities in compensation and career advancement that physicians can face is a longstanding goal of ACP. In order to foster an inclusive environment that promotes growth and development for female physicians, ACP’s paper calls for the adoption of equitable compensation policies in all organizations that employ physicians, investment in leadership development, negotiation and career development programs, and parental and family leave policies.

ACP’s paper makes the following recommendations to achieve equity in physician compensation and advancement:

Ensuring that physician compensation is equitable, and that no physician should be penalized for working less than full time.
Supporting universal access to family and medical leave policies that provide a minimum period of six weeks leave for physicians, residents and medical students, and recommends that six weeks paid leave become a standard part of any physician or resident's benefit package regardless of gender.
Urging all organizations that employ physicians to take steps to increase the number of women in leadership positions.
Investing in further research on the impact of gender compensation inequity and barriers to career advancement and best practices to close these gaps across all practice settings.
Implementing regular implicit bias training by all organizations that employ physicians.
Establishing programs in leadership development, negotiation, and career development for all physicians and physicians in training.

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