Language Matters: Is There Gender Bias in Internal Medicine Grand Rounds Introductions?

Abstract

Purpose: We performed an exploratory evaluation of gender-specific differences in speakers and their introductions at internal medicine grand rounds.

Method: Internal medicine grand rounds video archives from three sites between December 2013 and September 2020 were manually transcribed and analyzed using natural language processing techniques. Differences in word usage by gender were compared.

Results: Four hundred and sixty-two grand rounds held at three institutions were examined. There were 167 (34.6%) speakers who were women and 316 (65.4%) who were men. The proportion of women speakers was significantly lower than that of women in the internal medicine workforce (34.6% vs. 39.2%, p = 0.04). Among 191 external speakers, only 57 (29.8%) were women. The use of professional titles was equivalent between genders. Despite equal mention of specific achievements in both male and female speaker introductions, there was a trend toward casting female speakers as being less established.

Conclusion: There is a need to adopt processes that will decrease inequities in the representation of women in grand rounds and in their introductions.