Canadian Women Physicians Day!

Canadian Women Physicians Day was established in 2021 with the objective of honouring women’s achievements in medicine. It marks the day that Dr. Jennie Trout became the first woman licensed to practice medicine in Canada on March 11, 1875.

In 2023, female physicians unfortunately continue to face a significant gender gap in medicine. One contributing factor appears to be that women are less inclined to self-promote on the job, leading to inequities in perceived achievements.

A study published in the British Medical Journal (Lerchenmueller et al., 2019) found that clinical articles involving a male first or last author were more likely to present research findings positively in titles and abstracts compared with articles in which both the first and last author were women, particularly in the highest impact journals. Positive presentation of research findings was associated with higher downstream citations.

In another study, both male and female physicians surveyed felt that social media increased collaboration within and outside their specialties and institutions. However, male physicians were more likely to report certain professional benefits from their social media use, such as invited talks and increased scholarship opportunities (Woitowich et al., 2021).

The uOttawa DEM Gender Equity committee is hoping to highlight the accomplishments of the female physicians in our group and also encourage self-promotion. We have compiled a list of our female physicians’ accomplishments, and hope that highlighting these achievements can act as one small step toward closing the gender gap.