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WOMEN IN
MEDICINE

Supporting Women in Medicine

During the COVID-19 Pandemic

By Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, MD

I search. Though the leaky pipeline may be beyond
n September we celebrated “Women in Medi-
patching, we need to start somewhere.
cine” month, which was created to honor the
growing number of women in our profession.
What can employers do? Health care systems,
Since 2019, a little over half of medical students have CEOs, business leaders and physician allies can find
been women. This trend is exciting for the future of creative ways to be part of the solution. Women
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health care, especially with data showing a positive as- should be paid fairly and promoted, sponsored for
sociation with gender concordance of physicians and specific career opportunities and supported when pur-
their patients. suing those. I believe women should be offered grants
There is less knowledge that currently 77% of front- or other funds to support their work. We must ensure
facing health care and long-term care workers caring that women have appropriate time off to care for
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directly for patients are women, who unfortunately themselves and their loved ones. Also, consider child-
also had higher rates of COVID-19 infection. Despite care options for the workplace. As an individual physi-
efforts to advance women in medicine, the COVID- cian or health care leader, I encourage you to
19 pandemic has set us back. Back in September 2020, nominate a woman for an award or invite her to be a
almost one million women left the workforce. That speaker or co-author on a manuscript. You can also
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was almost four times the number of men. What hap- write a positive online review or send a positive note
pened at that time? September is generally when to her boss. We can all give her a reason to stay in
school starts. For women, responsibility at home and health care.
disproportionate child rearing responsibilities cause
women to leave the workforce. According to the study References
by the global nonprofit Catalyst, the main risk factors 1. https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/press-re-
for women leaving the workforce were: being a mother, leases/majority-us-medical-students-are-women-
being a senior leader and being a Black woman. new-data-show
Unfortunately, during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2. https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-
there has been a mass exodus of women from the med- brief/key-characteristics-of-health-care-workers-and-
ical field as well. The proverbial pipeline is leaking implications-for-covid-19-vaccination/
now more than ever. The pandemic has set back 3. https://www.catalyst.org/research/covid-effect-gen-
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women’s progress by 25 years in the U.S. workforce. der-racial-equality/
And women in medicine were already behind. Ac- 4. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/
cording to an article by Richter and colleagues in The women/reports/ 2020/10/30/492582/covid-19-
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New England Journal of Medicine, over a 35-year pe- sent-womens-workforce-progress-backward/
riod, women physicians in academic medical centers 5. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NE-
were less likely than men to be promoted to associate JMsa1916935
or full professor or appointed to department chair,
with no apparent narrowing of the gap. I believe we Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, MD runs the
must stop the loss. This was happening even before Post-COVID Recovery Clinic at UT Health
the pandemic. The massive departure of women from San Antonio. She is a member of the Bexar
the medical workforce impacts patient care and re- County Medical Society.

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