Purpose

To explore the relationship between gender and full-time faculty appointment in a national cohort of contemporary US medical school graduates.

Method

The authors analyzed deidentified, individual records for the 1998–2004 national cohort of US medical graduates using multivariate logistic regression to identify predictors of full-time faculty appointment through July 2009. They reported adjusted odds ratios (aOR) significant at P<. 05.

Results

Of 66,889 graduates, 12,038 (18.0%) had held full-time faculty appointments. Among all graduates, women (aOR= 1.21) were more likely than men to have held faculty appointments. Among only male graduates, those who participated in research during college (aOR= 1.08), who entered medical school with greater planned career involvement in research (aOR= 1.08), and who authored/coauthored a research paper during medical school (aOR= 1.12) were more likely, and those with higher debt were less likely (aOR= 0.96), to have held faculty appointments. Among only faculty appointees, higher proportions of men than women had participated in medical school research electives (63.5%[3,899/6,138] versus 54.2%[3,197/5,900]; P<. 001) and authored/coauthored research papers during medical school (44.1%[2,707/6,138] versus 33.6%[1,981/5,900]; P<. 001); female faculty had reported higher debt at medical school graduation than had male faculty (P=. 014).

Conclusions

In this national cohort of US medical graduates, women were more likely than men to have held full-time faculty appointments. However, male and female faculty appointees entered academic medicine with different research experiences and debt, possibly impacting their academic medicine career trajectories.