意识，承认，行动

The OUWB Center for Excellence in Medical Education recently hosted Lori LaCivita, Ph.D., for a webinar entitled “The Glass Ceiling; Broken, Shattered or Merely Dented?”

LaCivita, a noted psychologist with a focus on organizational psychology, led the Sept. 13 conversation that included nearly three dozen participants.

The event was part of the OUWB Center for Excellence in Medical Education (CEME) series held in conjunction with Women in Medicine Month.

The purpose was to clearly define the notion of a glass ceiling, and help attendees better understand that there’s work that needs to be done to overcome the related barriers.

LaCivita

“First we have to ask ourselves — what is (the glass ceiling)?拉奇维塔问道. “We hear about it, and it’s a term that we know about, but what really is that invisible ceiling?”

LaCivita explained that the ceiling is a barrier that makes it very difficult for women and minorities to rise in the ranks and be promoted or hired into top-level positions.

“我们认为这种情况还在发生吗?拉奇维塔说. “The glass ceiling is really difficult to see, because it’s really an informal barrier that’s used to keep women from getting promotions, 加薪和其他机会. 这是一道看不见的屏障, and women may not even be aware of its existence until you actually hit it.”

政策, 实践和态度已经到位, 她解释说, that produce and perpetuate this barrier.

据LaCivita说, the barriers may have diminished in some areas slightly, 但在其他地方, 他们可能已经升级了.

“Particularly in medicine, there’s a long career path for women,”她说。. “Women have entered the field in equal numbers to men for 20 years, 但一路走来, many women fail to advance and earn the same recognition, 同样的薪水, 和男性同事一样.”

The differences are often framed as individual failures, LaCivita说, despite strong evidence of gender discrimination against individuals in a myriad of communities including women in general, 任何类型的少数民族, LGBTQIA社区, 和其他人.

“There are various classes or categories that have experienced the glass ceiling,” 她解释说. “It’s not really an individual failure. 我认为, 虽然, 女人真的把这事放在心上, thinking they’re just not working hard enough, or their focus is not on the job as much as it should be. The medical profession really has to confront these issues, because this is just sexism.”

LaCivita说 women are often told to be better negotiators in private, or told not to have children in order to succeed.

These attitudes lead to eye-opening statistics concerning women in medicine.
Women have nearly double the rate of burnout 和男性同事一样 in the profession, and the rate of suicide in medicine amongst women in the U.S. is up to 4 times higher than the rate of the general population.

除了这些统计数据, both male and female managers are twice as likely to hire a man over a woman.

Only 15% of department heads are women, and only 16% of medical school deans are female. Women made up only one-quarter of first authors on medical journal articles between 2002 and 2021.

“作为一种文化和职业, medicine continues to systematically disadvantage women physicians at every stage of their careers,拉奇维塔说. “This causes many to leave the profession. As a result, we’re losing some of our most talented doctors and other types of medical staff.”

有钥匙, 然而, 据LaCivita说, in order to help break through this invisible ceiling.

“我们如何处理这个问题?? 这是不可避免的吗? Do we just have to deal with it and accept it?”她说。.

“事实并非如此. 我们发现了这种意识, acknowledgment and action are the three key things that need to take place in order to overcome this glass ceiling.”

Overall, LaCivita说 it’s a situation that continues to need addressing.

“Women have made great strides toward educational and workplace equity, and while they make up 40.2% of the workforce, they only make up 25% of executive officers, 9.5%的高收入者和4.6%的财富500强ceo。.

“There are so many micro inequities and they all add up to gender disparities,” said LaCivita. “There’s a lot of work left to be done.”