Women now comprise the majority of early-career endocrinologists, a shift that is causing ripple effects throughout the medical specialty. 

Elaine Pelley, MD, clinical associate professor, Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, was interviewed by the professional society Women in Endocrinology about an analysis she conducted of changing workforce demographics in the field of endocrinology. 

"A few years back, I noticed that our fellowship program had trained nine female fellows since we'd had a male fellow. I wondered what the odds of that were? This prompted me to look up the gender ratios in fellowship programs from the AAMC and found that endocrine fellows were over 70 percent female," said Dr. Pelley. 

In the interview, Dr. Pelley remarked on challenges such as addressing the gender pay gap and opportunities such as designing systems for academic advancement from the perspective of women in academic medicine. 

Resources:

• "Interview with Ellen M. Pelley, MD," Women in Endocrinology, Winter 2017