Becker's Hospital Review

32 WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP POPULATION HEALTH This just in: Male physicians continue to outearn female counterparts By Molly Gamble M edscape released its annual "Phy- sician Compensation Report" May 14, noting that in line with the past decade of its analysis, male physicians continue to earn more money than female physicians — 25 percent more in primary care and 33 percent more in specialty care, to be precise. Among primary care physicians, the pay gap of approximately 25 percent is consistent with years past. Full-time male primary care phy- sicians earn $264,000 on average, whereas their female counterparts bring in $212,000. e pay gap narrowed slightly for specialists compared to last year, from 33 percent to 31 percent. Full-time male specialists earn $375,000 on average, whereas their female counterparts bring in $286,000. For its 2020 report, Medscape collected re- sponses from more than 17,000 physicians in more than 30 specialties. Data was collected from Oct. 4, 2019, through Feb. 10, before the COVID-19 crisis began and healthcare organizations suspended elective surgeries. In a supplementary article to its survey, Med- scape notes that experts expect benchmarks for physicians to be lowered and bonuses to be constricted in light of lower patient vol- ume attributed to COVID-19. e report also breaks out the percentage of female physicians by specialty. e five specialties with the most female phy- sicians are: • OB-GYN: 58 percent • Pediatrics: 58 percent • Rheumatology: 54 percent • Dermatology: 49 percent • Diabetes and endocrinology: 45 percent e five specialties with the fewest female physicians are: • Urology: 10 percent • Orthopedics: 11 percent • Plastic surgery: 16 percent • Cardiology: 16 percent • Pulmonary medicine: 17 percent Specialties that have seen the most significant gains in female representation since 2015 in- clude OB-GYN (50 percent in 2015), pediat- rics (50 percent), rheumatology (29 percent) and dermatology (32 percent). n COVID-19 layoffs hit women, minorities harder By Molly Gamble W orkforce reductions made at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic were already compromising diversity by the end of March, numbers show. In an article for Harvard Business Review published April 20, Alexandra Kalev, PhD, professor of sociology at Tel-Aviv University, assessed where the U.S. economy stands in the face of a threat she previously advised companies to avoid: workforce reductions undoing gains in diversity and inclu- sion, with minorities and women feeling the pinch most. March data from the U.S. Labor Department shows the unemployment rate for women grew by 0.9 percent compared to 0.7 percent for men, and 60 percent of the 700,000 jobs eliminated in March were women's. While the overall unemployment rates for women and men were equal, Dr. Kalev described the trend as "unsettling." The numbers for minorities are even more troubling: Over- all unemployment rates for black men and for Hispanic and Asian men and women were 7 percent, 6 percent and 4.1 percent, respectively, versus 4 percent for whites. To keep the "economic recession from turning into a diver- sity recession," as Dr. Kalev describes it, she advises boards and leaders to: 1. Heavily scrutinize layoff lists. Review them to ensure decisions do not disproportionately hurt women, minori- ties or any other group coincidentally concentrated in tar- geted jobs. 2. Consider what people can contribute, not just their current titles. Look beyond the position and tenure to fac- tor in performance evaluations. Keeping top performers can better maintain diversity. 3. Redeploy talent where needed. Southwest Airlines didn't need its job recruiters during the Great Recession. To avoid losing employees with good interpersonal skills in a female-dominated position, the company redeployed recruiters to front-line customer service jobs. 4. Don't cut your diversity team. Keeping a diversity management staff in place will help the organization get creative about reducing labor costs while maintaining di- versity and inclusion and continuing to enhance those ef- forts when hiring resumes. n

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