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The 63% question: Why are female physicians lagging behind?

The U.S. Census Bureau says women doctors make 63 cents for every dollar male physicians make.

By Myrle Croasdale, amednews staff. Sept. 13, 2004.

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Jennifer Rubin Grandis, MD, an otolaryngologist at the University of Pittsburgh, wasn't looking to stir up controversy when she started gathering statistics on salaries as part of an overall study on how women were faring in her field. Her goal was to become better equipped to offer career advice to the growing number of women medical students considering specializing in otolaryngology -- head and neck surgery.

"I don't have an ax to grind," she said. "I've been the only female faculty member for such a long time, and students were asking for help. I wanted to get a sense of the playing field, to find out what was going on."

Women physicians are catching up with men in terms of sheer numbers, but they aren't keeping pace on the pay scale, according to Dr. Grandis and others who recently have published studies on the matter. Specifics of these studies vary, but they share a common theme: The gender divide in income has yet to disappear.

Dr. Grandis was surprised by what she found.

"I thought the other studies didn't have the robust control groups [that I did]," she said. "If you really equalized everybody ... then maybe there was a chance income would not be so discrepant."

The fact that so many women physicians work part time has been offered up as a key reason they make less, but Dr. Grandis found that this was not necessarily the case in her specialty.

"I was shocked that so few of the people in the study worked part time," she said, especially since most women, like herself, manage careers while handling the majority of household and family tasks.