Aims:

1- To determine the gender composition of medical students, residents, faculty and faculty leadership at an academic medical center in Beirut, Lebanon over the past 50 years and determine if the gender gap at medical school in a developing country has closed and compare to international data. This will be conducted while keeping in mind the local geo-political history which notes significant occurrences of local crises and war likely to play a role in shaping any emergent trends of the last 50 years. 

2- To explore the career paths of female physicians by:

a.       Looking at specialty distribution of residents and trends over 50 years by gender.

b.      Looking at specialty distribution of faculty and trends over 50 years by gender.

c.       Exploring whether the “leaky pipeline” verses the a”bursting pipeline” exists in Lebanon post-residency training and assess the rate of progression versus static nature of the career of physician female versus male graduates.

d.      Understanding concerns and motivational factors behind current medical students’ career choice.

3- To serve as a platform to identify key structural constraints to shape organizational and professional policy recommendations as well as to shape future studies on gender in medicine in a developing country more broadly

The study will adopt a mixed-methods approach, combining both quantitative and qualitative techniques of data collection and data analysis.

The study will look at gender differences across medical students, residents, faculty and Faculty of Medicine leadership at a single Lebanese Medical Center over the past 50 years from 1966 to 2016. All medical students, residents and faculty physicians over the past 50 years will be included in the study. Current senior medical students, current medical faculty and medical alumni that have graduated 5, 10 and 15 years ago will be included. 

All medical students and residents who enrolled at AUBMC over the past 50 years will be included in the study. All faculty hires at AUBMC will also be included as well as all existing faculty during the same time period. All current third and fourth year students will be asked to fill out a survey. A sample of Medical alumni that have graduated from AUB 5 years, 10 years and 15 years ago will be included in the study.

Qualitative techniques will be used to dig deeper, semi-structured interviews will be designed and conducted to 30 participants who are the medical center's alumni having graduated 10,20,30 and 40 years prior to the start of the study.