AMWA and Korn Ferry: Setting an Agenda for Change
In 2022, the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) and Korn Ferry released a joint report, Women in Medicine: Setting the Agenda for Change.
The report highlights career challenges faced by women physicians across settings and provides strategies to advance gender equity and women’s leadership in healthcare. Women make up more than 75% of the healthcare workforce but represent only 30% of executive leadership and 13% of CEOs. In 35 years, there has been minimal progress in advancing women to senior academic leadership positions, where 21.1% of department Chairs and 19% of Medical School Deans are women.
We invite individuals, institutions, organizations, and corporations to share their agenda for change.
As we know, the pandemic caused a rollback in progress across many markers for equity, including unprecedented job and income losses for women in medicine. Those who continued to work saw increased job responsibilities, new hurdles in publishing research and advancing in addition to heightened exposure to health hazards and on-the-job stress.
The AMWA/Korn Ferry Women in Medicine report exposes three key challenges that must be addressed to achieve equity in medicine:
- Fixing the gender gap in healthcare leadership
- Promoting respect, equity, and work-life integration
- Expanding women’s representation across specialties
“AMWA and Korn Ferry are committed to a single shared goal: accelerating opportunities for women physicians in every area of healthcare – from academia, research and public health to venture capital, start-ups and technology,” said Eliza Lo Chin, MD, MPH, Executive Director of AMWA. “Increasing diversity improves patient care, work cultures, and the bottom line of our healthcare institutions.”
“Our shared vision is to advance more women in leadership roles, bringing influence and innovation across the spectrum of healthcare and medicine and in all sectors,” added Liz Bickley, Korn Ferry Senior Client Partner in the firm’s Healthcare advisory business. “We need to improve work systems and cultures to better support women physicians and improve patient care.”
Download the Report
Final AMWA + KF Women in Medicine Whitepaper
