The potential of women in medicine and science, like those in many other professions, has not been fully realised. When compared with men, women in these fields are paid less, have higher rates of attrition, have fewer scientific publications, and are less likely to apply for NIH funding and to be principal investigators. It is not surprising therefore, that women are less likely to advance to the highest ranks in academic medicine...

The proportion of women at the rank of full professor in US medical schools has not increased since 1980 and remains below that of men. Whether differences in age, experience, specialty, and research productivity between sexes explain persistent disparities in faculty rank has not been studied.

A gender imbalance has been noted at medical conferences internationally, with typically more male than female speakers.

We conducted a retrospective observational study to assess the proportion of female program speakers and the time allocated to them at the annual scientific meetings (ASMs) of six Australasian specialty colleges from 2012 to 2014 (n = 17). For 2013, female ASM representation was compared with published data on female workforce participation for each specialty. The six colleges evaluated were the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM), Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA), College of Intensive Care Medicine of Australia and New Zealand (CICM), Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP), Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) and Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG).

Across countries and disciplines, studies show male researchers receive more research funding than their female peers. Because most studies have been observational, it is unclear whether imbalances stem from evaluations of female research investigators or of their proposed research. In 2014, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research created a natural experiment by dividing investigator-initiated funding applications into two new grant programmes: one with and one without an explicit review focus on the calibre of the principal investigator.