Abstract
We carried out a survey of surgical residents in the Caribbean to quantify the prevalence of gender discrimination. In this setting, up to 85% of surgical residents were exposed to gender based discrimination, especially young women who are junior-level surgical residents.
Most surgical leaders acknowledge that there has been increased female representation in surgery, 1 but lament that inequality between genders still exists. Published global data reveal that 50 2 –67% 1 of women still experience discrimination in the surgical workplace. If this trend were to continue unchecked, we risk alienating women from pursuing surgical careers in favour of other, more accommodating specialties.
A literature review returned sparse data on gender discrimination in surgical disciplines within the Anglophone Caribbean, despite reports that gender inequality was endemic in wider Caribbean society.3,4 After studying 10 Caribbean nations, the Caribbean Development Bank 5 reported that the region was plagued with a disproportionately high level of gender-based violence, gender-based disparity in education, occupational segregation, and a gender-based wage gap.
In order to quantify gender-based discrimination in the surgical disciplines, we carried out a survey of surgical residencies in the Caribbean. Among 95 respondents, 81 (85.3%) were passive observers of gender discrimination, and 47 (49.5%) personally experienced gender-based victimization. Interestingly, among those who personally experienced gender-based discrimination, victims were more likely to be women (85% vs. 15%; P < 0.001) and early post-graduate residents in years 1–3 (62% vs. 38%; P 0.018328).
Apart from quantifying the prevalence of gender bias, these data allowed us to identify young women who are junior-level surgical residents as the likely victims of gender discrimination. These data should prompt surgical leaders to develop targeted strategies to protect this vulnerable group. Administrators may wish to consider implementing Whistleblower policies, ensuring support services for victims, creating well-documented pathways to report abuse, and developing a framework to penalize and rehabilitate perpetrators. Therefore, we make an urgent plea for surgical leaders to take a stand so that we can build an inclusive and balanced next-generation surgical workforce.
Footnotes
Author contributions
SC designed the study, performed statistical analyses, and wrote the paper. RC designed the study and wrote the paper. MM and SJ assisted in data analysis and wrote the paper. RG wrote the paper. All authors read the paper for scientific accuracy and content.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Data available statement
Data are available upon request. Readers may contact the corresponding author for data requests.