Recommendations

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SUPPLEMENT 711

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Recommendations

This Task Force has identified important issues

and concerns which affect opportunities for women

in Pediatrics. The following recommendations are

made to address these issues.

RECOMMENDATION NO. 1:

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) should

appoint a committee to implement long-range plans

to further the progress of women physicians in their training, their careers, and role in their Academy.

The committee should identify and sponsor issues

which concern women members of the AAP

includ-ing education, academic promotion, establishing practice, midcareer options, and retraining.

New and Comments in 1979 and 1980 published solicitations for an expression of interest in a focus for activities and concerns of women pediatricians.

The inquiries stimulated responses from women all

Sc

ver the country. When the Academy’s Task Force

n Expanded Pediatric Careers began in 1978 to

analyze the concerns of pediatricians who sought

career help, it was evident that there were women

Fellows who needed and wanted information and

support. Many of the other recommendations of

this Task Force can best be handled by a committee

of the Academy directed to address the problems

that have been raised in this report.

Because of the under-representation of women

in the American Medical Association (AMA)

mem-bership in contrast to the total physician

popula-tion, the AMA Board of Trustees recently

ap-pointed an Ad Hoc Committee on Women

Physi-cians in Organized Medicine. This committee

uti-lized four resources to formulate their report and

their recommendations to the AMA Board of

Trustees’:

1. Review of existing data on professional and

or-ganizational activities of women physicians

(re-view of the literature and available statistics).

2. Solicitation of written comments or verbal

tes-timony at open hearings of the AMA annual

meetings.

3. Informal surveys and focus group interviews by

the Ad Hoc Committee members.

4. Written survey of 2,000 women (1,000 AMA

members and 1,000 non-AMA members) as a

supplemental insert in the 1980 AMA

member-ship survey and in cooperation with the Division of Survey and Data Resources.

This survey was designed to determine an

accu-rate demographic profile of each group of women,

to gauge attitudes about organized medicine, and to

solicit recommendations for improving female

membership and participation. The response rate

to this survey was 45.9% for AMA members and

25.7% for nonmembers. The most important rea-sons forjoining or not joining the AMA were similar

for women and men physicians. The survey did

identify three major attitudes, uniquely cited by

women physicians, that were barriers to increased

participation in the AMA and organized medicine

in general: (1) limited time due to other obligations;

(2) lack of opportunity; and (3) “lack of interest.”

Ninety-two percent (92.7%) of AMA women

mem-bers reported limited activity, predominantly due

to family responsibilities. More than half of the

women AMA respondents were married and, of

these, more than 80% had at least one dependent

child still at home. A high percent of the women

responding to this survey were married to

physi-cians, with an even larger percent belonging to

dual-career marriages in which the spouse was a

physi-cian or other professional.

Inadequate preparation for leadership and sex

discrimination were given as reasons for the women

feeling they did not have the opportunities for

leadership involvement in AMA. The three most

frequently mentioned recommendations from those

surveys were: (1) greater involvement of women in

organized medicine; (2) elimination of sexual

dis-crimination; and (3) support for programs dealing with child care and household responsibilities. The

AMA survey report included nine

recommenda-tions; some of these (Nos. 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, and 9) are similar in concept to the eight recommendations

presented in this Task Force report. The Task

Force endorses, in particular, the need for a new

Academy committee on women pediatricians. For

purposes of continuity, the committee should be

called the Committee on Opportunities for Women

in Pediatrics.

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712 WOMEN IN PEDIATRICS RECOMMENDATION NO. 2:

The AAP should identify individual(s) on the

Acad-emy staff who will provide the support for the AAP

committee proposed in Recommendation No. 1,

coordinate activities and promote communications associated with the special interests and concerns

of women physicians in AAP, as well as interact

with staff of other organized medical groups such

as the Association for American Medical Colleges

(AAMC), the American Medical Association

(AMA), and the American Medical Women’s

As-sociation Professional Resources Research Center

(AMWA-PRCC).

There is a need to coordinate the efforts of a

number of organizations interested in the issues

and concerns of women physicians. Many groups

have initiated efforts in this area and unless there is an identifiable person within each group to inter-act with individuals in similar groups, the activities

of the different groups could be duplicative and

fragmented. Staff of each organization are in a good

position to know the needs of their members and

the structure of the particular organization.

Through liaison with associations, a staff person at AAP could synthesize the positive features of other

programs and advise the Committee on

Opportun-ities for Women in Pediatrics on promising

tech-niques for accomplishing the goal of improving

women’s opportunities for careers in pediatrics.

The AAP staff person would serve a key role in

communicating and interacting with the liaison

representatives of the various medical schools

(Rec-ommendation No. 5) and the AAP Chapter

repre-sentatives (Recommendation No. 6).

The AAP should develop a data base on women

pediatricians, both members and nonmembers of

the American Academy of Pediatrics. Information

is needed on the numbers, locations, activities, and other characteristics of women in pediatrics as well as their special needs.

The Committee on Opportunities for Women in

Pediatrics (see Recommendation No. 1) will need

base line data to measure the progress of women

physicians in their profession and in their

partici-pation in AAP activities. Such data will be useful

in evaluating the impact of intervention to support

women pediatricians, such as leadership

confer-ences or training seminars.

For women in practice, women on pediatric

fa-culties, and women in public health or administra-tive medicine, specific information is needed about career goals, barriers to advancement, salary differ-entials, special interests, and expectations from the

Academy. This may require surveys or other means

of eliciting information.

The AAP should provide leadership training and

career workshops to assist pediatricians of both

sexes.

The Academy has conducted one leadership

course for women in pediatrics (Williamsburg,

1980) and several women’s meetings during AAP

Annual Meetings including a Round Table in San

Francisco (1979) and one in New Orleans (1981). A

Seminar for Women in Pediatrics was held at the

1982 meeting in New York. These should be

con-tinued and expanded.

Workshops should be developed for the pediatric leaders of the future. These should be directed not only at leadership for the pediatric professional but

also toward certain areas of specific need sudh as

leadership for the planning and management of

quality medical programs for infants and children in the public health field. They might include public speaking and communication skills, practical

infor-mation on organizational management,

assertive-ness training, negotiation techniques, committee

dynamics, and problem solving and decision

mak-ing. Assertiveness training courses may prove

es-pecially beneficial to women (and men) who lack

confidence. These workshops should be scheduled

at the time of the annual and spring meetings and

offer continuing medical education credit. Similar

workshops should be encouraged in cooperation

with state AAP Chapters and state, county (parish), or city medical societies or specialty societies and

medical schools and should be open to students,

pediatric house officers, and junior faculty.

The AAP should encourage medical schools to

ap-point a member of the faculty to serve as a liaison

representative to organizations including the AAP

for issues concerning women students and

physi-cians including pediatricians.

A member of the faculty for each medical school

should be designated to communicate with the AAP

committee on issues and concerns of women

pedia-tric house staff and faculty. This individual should

also interact with the state chapter of the AAP.

The Academy should provide educational materials

and information to medical students to encourage

them to pursue careers in pediatrics. Dissemination

of these materials should be the responsibility of

the designated faculty member.

The AAP staff person and the liaison represent-ative of the faculty of each medical school should

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SUPPLEMENT 713

be aware of and disseminate information on other

groups such as the American Medical Women’s

5’

ssociation-Professional Resources Research

Cen-ter (AMWA-PRRC), which helps design, present,

cosponsor, and develop regional and local

work-shops.

State chapters of the AAP should designate a

chap-ter member to serve as a liaison representative to

the AAP central office for issues concerning women pediatricians.

Like the medical school designee, this Chapter

person should serve as a focal point for coordination

of information on issues of concern to women

pe-diatricians at the Chapter level. In addition, this

person should help encourage female nonmembers

to join the Academy, encourage members to become

more active in Academy programs and committees, and identify women pediatricians who are potential leaders. Such an individual can serve to identify

and clarify issues of special concern to women for

other Chapter members.

The AAP should support the increased availability

nd flexibility of quality part-time training and

training programs to assist women physicians to

meet their training and career development needs

and to allow time for childbearing and child rearing at residency, fellowship, and junior faculty levels.

This recommendation relates to the conflict

be-tween professional career development and the

de-sire for family life including childbearing and child rearing. Flexible, reduced schedules and/or shared

residency training programs could allow women

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physicians to take the time necessary for childbear-ing without seriously interrupting or jeopardizing

their medical careers. The quality and quantity of

these programs need to be improved. Quality

re-training after one or more years’ absence for child

rearing needs to be promoted. More information is

needed on the availability, organization, and utili-zation of training and retraining programs. Also, it is important to collect follow-up data on trainees to evaluate the success of such programs.

The AAP should support national and state

legis-lation to improve the availability and quality of day

care for working mothers, and to provide tax

ben-efits for this care.

Women in pediatric training have long and

de-manding schedules. The day care needs ofthe

work-ing woman with small children are magnified in

medicine by the time demands of training

pro-grams. The Academy should be an advocate of

quality day care for all mothers, as a means of

strengthening family bonds. Women pediatricians in training, who are also mothers, deserve the

sup-port of the Academy in their desire for the best

possible day care for their children.

Additionally, AAP should work to make training

broadly available to qualify pediatricians to provide

leadership in their communities for planning and

establishing needed day care programs and to

pro-vide ongoing consultation to staff and clients of

universal day care centers for infants and children.

REFERENCE

1. AMA Ad Hoc Committee on Women Physicians: Report to

the Board of Trustees, 1980. Chicago, American Medical

Association, 1981

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1983;71;711

Pediatrics