Equal compensation for equal work
Ultimately, it is in the best interest of all physicians, their employers, and their patients to ensure female physicians are satisfied and fulfilled in their professions, said Dr. Jena, and that includes recognizing and rewarding their value.
“What I am trying to argue in my work is for equal pay – equal compensation for equal work,” Dr. Jena said. “Man or woman, it’s a good idea.”
Dr. Jena, who is also a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, said that when the contributions of a group of people are systematically undervalued, “you run the risk of having those individuals invest less in their career.” In health care, he said, “if fewer women want to go into academic medicine because they know they are underpaid, what impact does it have on new ideas when you eliminate highly successful, intelligent people from a field?”
Dr. Jena and his colleagues authored a February 2017 study in JAMA Internal Medicine that showed hospitalized Medicare patients treated by female internists have lower 30-day mortality and readmissions rates compared with those treated by male internists, including hospitalists. This included millions of hospitalizations and accounted for myriad confounders.5
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