499 - Association between gender and compensation among pediatric hospital medicine physicians

Saturday, April 29, 2023

3:30 PM – 6:00 PM ET

Poster Number: 499
Publication Number: 499.221

Catherine S.. Forster, UPMC Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; Chen Chen, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Morristown, NJ, United States; Jessica M. Allan, Palo Alto Medical Foundation/ Stanford Children's Hospital, Palo Alto, CA, United States; Jessica Gold, Stanford University School of Medicine, San Mateo, CA, United States; Catherine Polak, UPMC Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; Lauren Barone, American Academy of Pediatrics, Itasca, IL, United States; Holly S. Ruch-Ross, American Academy of Pediatrics, Evanston, IL, United States; Bin Huang, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, United States; H. Barrett Fromme, University of Chicago Division of the Biological Sciences The Pritzker School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, United States; Juliann Kim, Stanford University School of Medicine, Los Altos, CA, United States; Amanda Schondelmeyer, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, United States

Presenting Author(s)

CF

Catherine S. Forster, MD (she/her/hers)

Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
UPMC Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

Background: Among physicians in pediatric hospital medicine (PHM), there are disproportionately lower rates of women as division directors, senior authors on articles, and invited speakers at conferences. While research has shown gender-based differences in financial compensation in other medical specialties, this has not been examined in PHM.

Objective: Determine if a difference exists in financial compensation between men and women physicians in PHM.

Design/Methods:

This was a cross-sectional study of non-trainee members of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Section on Hospital Medicine and special interest group members of the Academic Pediatric Association and the Society of Hospital Medicine. The primary outcomes were self-reported annual base and total salary. We adapted questions from previously published instruments and added new questions around demographics, average hours worked per week, and self-reported base (without bonus or supplements) and total salary. Prior to electronic distribution, the instrument was assessed for clarity and modified appropriately. We used inverse probability weighting (IPW) with propensity scores (PS) to minimize confounding bias. The variables used to develop the PS are listed in Table 1. We used covariate balancing PS to construct PS. We ensured the IPW was able to balance the baseline confounding variables and compared salaries between men and women using the IPW-weighted Wilcoxon rank sum test. We calculated total salary difference by using the median salary for men and results of the IPW to determine the corresponding salary for women.

Results: 523 out of 1096 (52%) people responded to the survey. Respondents mostly identified as women (n=403, 77%), white (n=396, 76%), and non-Hispanic (n=504, 96%), were mostly employed by a hospital/healthcare system (n=276, 53%), and spent >75% of their time in clinical care (n=267, 51%). (Table 2) In the adjusted PS analysis, women’s mean base salary was 88.5% of men’s base salary (95% CI 80.4-97.4%, p< 0.01) and 85.9% of men’s total salary (95%CI 73.5%-100.0, p< 0.01). Notably, in a sub-analysis of respondents in leadership roles, women had a total salary that was 79.9% (95% CI: 68.1%-93.8%, p< 0.001) of men’s total salaries. Most respondents identified as white, precluding sub-analyses of people with intersectional identities.

Conclusion(s): A financial compensation gap between men and women remains after removing common confounding factors. This gap, which does not account for disparities in the number of individuals with leadership positions or inflation, represents a difference of almost one million dollars over 30-years.