Gender bias may play a role in medical residents' evaluations

Gender bias could influence how medical residents are evaluated, according to a new study. Looking at data from 3,600 evaluations of more than 700 residents, researchers found that female residents' assessments peaked until their second year of residency but plateaued afterwards — male residents' scores, however, increased in year 3 across five of the six competencies they were tested for, including patient care. When considering the gender of the faculty doing the evaluation, scientists found that male and female faculty consistently ranked male residents' performance higher after year 2, but there was no similar increase in female residents' scores. More research is needed to understand how bias might be responsible for these differences in order to fix the discrepancies, the authors suggest.