Women remain underrepresented at all levels of academic medicine, with even greater disparities for women of color. This lack of diversity undermines both the quality of medical research as well as medicine’s ability to serve the diverse US population. One key reason is that women, and particularly women of color, leave the STEMM pipeline due to lack of access to career-enhancing opportunities that leads to promotions. Prior research shows that women across racial groups perform substantially more non-promotable “office housework” compared to men, while receiving fewer opportunities that support promotion and retention.
These disparities matter not only for workplace equity but also for patient outcomes: patients treated by female physicians often experience better outcomes, patients matched with physicians of the same race are more likely to receive critical preventive care, and communities with more Black physicians show improved health outcomes for Black residents. Ensuring fair access to career-enhancing opportunities is therefore critical for retaining a diverse physician workforce that ultimately improves patient outcomes.