Academic physicians at Stanford’s School of Medicine designed a study to better understand how academic physicians think about and experience success in their careers, examining the facilitators and barriers to professional development that vary by sex and gender. In this study, 25 academic physicians at Stanford were given a brief survey, and qualitatively interviewed about how they experience professional success.
Facente Consulting was hired to coordinate and track participant recruitment and incentives, design the qualitative interview guide, conduct in-person and phone interviews, analyze the interview and survey data, and contribute to the writing of a manuscript for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Unsurprisingly, the study highlighted gender differences in definitions of “success” at work, and provided Stanford Medicine with information they needed to better support female medical students entering the program, as well as long-time academic physicians who had blazed a trail as some of the first women hired to practice and teach in the program.