Twenty years of silence: shining a light on gender disparities in academic medical leadership in India

INTRODUCTION: Under-representation of women in senior academic medicine positions fails to mirror the over-representation of women entering medical schools. More women medical professors are needed as leadership role models to facilitate gender equity in the curriculum, research and medical services for national well-being. We seek to understand this gender gap in India by highlighting gender disparities in a premier Indian medical school and by advocating multi-level interventions in academic medicine. METHODS: We statistically analysed documentary data of all faculty ranks from 2004-2005 to 2022-2023 at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi to illustrate women faculty's representation in different disciplines (clinical, paraclinical and surgical) and leadership positions. First, we used trend analysis to project the time to gender parity across ranks. We then adopted cross-tabulation analysis to calculate the relative odds of women faculty holding academic ranks and leadership positions compared with their male counterparts. RESULTS: =18.20, p