Improving the recruitment and hiring process for women faculty.

A T u c w m s ( C r t i r a f “ n the past decade, the number of women medical students as equaled or exceeded the number of men. Despite this rowth, women continue to be persistently and substanially underrepresented in academic medicine. Although omen are more likely than men to pursue an academic areer, they are still underrepresented, constituting fewer han one-third of all physicians holding academic appointents nationwide. Across all medical specialties, only 6% of full professors are women. As administrators at cademic medical centers formulate ways to address gender isproportions within academic medicine, one factor to nvestigate is recruitment of women faculty. In 2002, the ssociation of American Medical Colleges Increasing omen’s Leadership project recommended that medical chools “enhance the effectiveness of search committees to ttract women candidates, including assessment of group rocess and of how candidates’ qualifications are defined nd evaluated.” The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine has racked the percentage of women faculty and, although here have been improvements, many departments coninue to have few women faculty. The Department of Surery is of particular interest because of the nationwide defcit of women in surgery. Nationwide, only 7 of 301 chairs of surgery in 2005 2%) were women. Nationally, women surgeons now onstitute 16% of faculty at academic medical centers, and ata from studies reveal that true leadership positions reain elusive for women in academic surgery. According o Department of Surgery statistics at the University of ennsylvania, in 2007 only 15% of total faculty members n the Department of Surgery were women. This article documents some responses to the Gender quity Initiative at University of Pennsylvania School of edicine, both school-wide and by the department of surery. As part of the work of meeting the goals for recruiting