82% of pain management doctors in the U.S. are men

18% are women."

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Why Aren’t There More Female Pain Medicine Physicians?

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"Despite a growing awareness about the importance of gender equity and the rising number of women

in medicine, women remain persistently underrepresented in pain medicine and anesthesiology.

 

Pain medicine ranks among the bottom quartile of medical specialties in terms of female applicants, female

trainees, and proportion of female practitioners. Female pain medicine physicians are also notably disadvantaged compared with their male colleagues in most objective metrics of gender equity, which include financial

compensation, career advancement, public recognition, and leadership positions.

 

Increased gender diversity among pain medicine physicians is vital to fostering excellence in pain research, education, and clinical care, as well as creating a high-quality work environment. Pain medicine stands at a crossroads as a specialty, which must examine reasons for the current gender gap in our profession and consider a call to action to address this important issue. 

 

      “The greatest potential deterrents to female participation may actually be the culture and historical trends

      of pain medicine. Potential applicants may perceive the field as unfriendly to women, making the

      underrepresentation of women in pain medicine a self-perpetuating problem.1

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By Tina L. Doshi, MD and Mark C. Bicket, MD -

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Women physicians’ salaries continue to trail men’s

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Women physicians are branching into more specialties but also still earn less than men.

On average, men make $286K and women physicians make $239K.

This is a 19% pay gap, which is an improvement from 25% a few years ago." 2

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Physician Compensation Fell,
Gender Pay Gap Persisted in 2022

 

"The physician compensation gap between women and men was 26 percent in 2022,

with women physicians earning almost $110,000 less than their male counterparts." 3

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1 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6459683/

2 https://weatherbyhealthcare.com/blog/annual-physician-salary-report

3 Physician Compensation Fell, Gender Pay Gap Persisted in 2022 (revcycleintelligence.com)

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