Countering Stereotypes of Women and Minorities in Medicine

Byington: A healthy pregnancy does not interfere with a woman physician's ability to care for patients, to educate trainees, or to perform medical research. My name is Carrie Byington. I'm from the University of Utah and I am the Vice Dean for Academic Affairs and Faculty Development in the School of Medicine.

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Interviewer: Dr. Byington, recently the University of Utah published an advertisement in Academic Medicine featuring a pregnant woman. Tell me a little bit about why you wanted to feature a pregnant woman in an advertisement.

Byington: So the advertisements are being called "Why Utah" and they're being featured in October and November in the Academic Medicine Journal, published by the AAMC. We wanted to create an advertisement campaign that could help address some of the stereotypes that we believe exist about the University of Utah, and we wanted to show people across the country that the University of Utah is more diverse than they might think. And so our advertisements feature under-represented minorities in medicine as well as women.

We featured a pregnant physician in our advertisement because so many times women receive negative messages about being able to be a physician and to be a mother.

Interviewer: Is this a message that you felt like needed to be sent out among academic medical centers, and if so, why?

Byington: This is an evidence based image, and so we know that unconscious bias is prevalent in academic medicine and it may interfere with the advancement of women and others that are under-represented in medicine. One of the best ways to combat unconscious bias is by presenting anti-stereotypes, and so we chose to present this image of a pregnant physician who is actually one of our emergency room doctors.

Interviewer: What's the message that you hope people receive when they see this ad?

Byington: What we would like to say at the University of Utah is that we believe that a healthy pregnancy does not interfere with a woman physician's ability to care for patients, to educate trainees, or to perform medical research.

Interviewer: What sorts of things are going on at the University of Utah right now that are there to support pregnant physicians or other pregnant faculty and staff?

Byington: We are working on our parental leave policy. We'll become one of the only public universities in our region that supports a paid parental leave policy for our faculty. We're also working on creating inclusive spaces in our medical environment and buildings, including lactation rooms, and we have an on-site child care coordinating center in our School of Medicine.

Interviewer: So this isn't just about physicians who are pregnant or planning to get pregnant, but it also includes physicians who already have children and families.

Byington: We want to be supportive and flexible for all of our faculty members, men and women, and we realize that helping them to balance their work lives with their personal lives is very important.

Interviewer: When you decided to publish this ad in Academic Medicine, did you anticipate any kind of response from an audience towards an ad specifically featuring a pregnant physician?

Byington: We believed that there would be a response, and we felt that we really wanted to make a statement. Every day in our academic medical centers, pregnant women are contributing to the missions of the academic medical center. It's part of our reality, but it's not been represented as far as I could ever find or see in any advertisements or materials used to recruit individuals. And we want to really make a strong statement that there's space for women throughout their lives to participate in academic medicine.

Interviewer: Can you give me some specific examples of some of the challenges that women, or pregnant women, or pregnant physicians might face as they try to advance their careers?

Byington: Well, in many ways they face the challenges that everyone faces in these busy times, trying to balance work and personal and professional lives. Most families in the United States include two parents that are working, and so there are these normal barriers that pregnant physicians would face, but we also believe that they face unconscious bias and that somehow by being pregnant at work they may be signaling to others that they are uncommitted to their profession, and we disagree completely with that interpretation.

Interviewer: And knowing the doctor that's in this photo, do you feel that she is one who would be uncommitted to work?

Byington:  Dr. Fix, who's featured in the photograph, is obviously a highly-committed physician, and you can see her engaged with trainees on the hospital ward. She's an excellent physician and educator.

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