Assessing perceived effectiveness of career development efforts led by the women in American Medical Informatics Association Initiative.
J Am Med Inform Assoc
; 29(9): 1593-1606, 2022 08 16.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-35773963
OBJECTIVE: We sought to ascertain perceived factors affecting women's career development efforts in the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) and to provide recommendations for improvements. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data were collected using a 27-item survey administered via the AMIA newsletter and other social channels. Survey questions comprised 3 demographics, 15 Likert-scale, and 9 open-ended items. Likert-scale responses were summarized across respondent ages, career stages, and career domains, and open-ended responses were thematically analyzed. RESULTS: We received survey responses from 109 AMIA women members. Our findings demonstrate that AMIA had made strides in promoting career development, and the most effective AMIA efforts included social events (83%), panel discussions (80%), and scientific sessions (79%). However, despite these efforts, women members perceived that gender-specific challenges persisted within AMIA, and recognized the need for increased networking opportunities (96%), raising awareness of gender-specific challenges (95%), and encouraging gender proportional representation in leadership (92%). DISCUSSION: International and national biomedical informatics professional communities have put forth efforts to address gender-specific issues in career development. Yet, our study identified that some of these, including the deep-rooted gender power hierarchy and bias, are still perceived as profound in AMIA. CONCLUSION: Even though existing career development efforts for women are highly effective, important perceived gender-specific career development issues require further attention and investigation to improve existing AMIA activities.
Key words
Full text:
1
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Medical Informatics
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Female
/
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
America do norte
Language:
En
Journal:
J Am Med Inform Assoc
Journal subject:
INFORMATICA MEDICA
Year:
2022
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
United States