The Cost of Being a Woman in Academic Cardiothoracic Surgery: An Analysis of Academic Rank and Salary

Purpose: Diversity of the cardiothoracic surgery workforce is a priority. The purpose of this collaborative work between The Society of Thoracic Surgeons Workforces on Cardiothoracic Surgery Practice Models and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is to quantify disparities in number and salary between women and men.

Methods: We performed a cross-sectional analysis of data collected by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Data Resource Book 2021 and Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Faculty Data for U.S. Medical School Faculty 2019, 2020 and 2021. The number of academic cardiothoracic surgery faculty members and mean salaries stratified by academic rank and gender were studied. We reported women's’ earning as a percentage of men’s earnings in cardiothoracic surgery, academic surgery and academic medicine.

Results: The percentage of women in academic cardiothoracic surgery is 11.5%, which has not increased over the past three years. In 2021, cardiothoracic surgeons who were women earned $0.71-$0.86 for every dollar earned by cardiothoracic surgeons who were men. Ascending academic rank correlated with greater gender salary disparity. Women professors earned less than men of equal and lower academic rank. From 2019 to 2021 women of the academic ranks of associate professor, professor and chief of cardiothoracic surgery experienced a decrease in mean salaries while men of equivalent academic ranks experienced an increase in mean salaries. Estimated accumulated salary of a women in cardiothoracic surgery is 72.0% to 86.2% of the salary accumulated by a man over a career in cardiothoracic surgery.

Conclusion: Gender disparity in cardiothoracic surgery persists with low representation of women and salary disparity at every academic rank.

Identify the source of the funding for this research project: This study was partially supported by TUFCCC/HC Regional Comprehensive Cancer Health Disparity Partnership, Award Number U54 CA221704(5) (Contact PIs: Grace X. Ma, PhD and Olorunseun O. Ogunwobi, MD, PhD) from the National Cancer Institute of National Institutes of Health (NCI/NIH). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NCI/NIH.