National Leadership Workshop on Mentoring Women in Biomedical Careers

• About the Workshop
• Purpose and Goals
• Planning Committee
• Final Agenda
• Posters
• Table-Talk
• Concurrent Workshops
• Other Mentoring Resources

Workshop Session III: Insights into Mentoring Women in Biomedical Careers from Social Science Research

Chair: Molly Carnes, M.D., Professor, Medicine and Industrial & Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin - Madison
Co-Chair: Linda Pololi, M.B.B.S., Senior Scientist, PI of the National Initiative on Gender, Culture, and Leadership in Medicine, Brandeis University
Co-Chair: Ruth Fassinger, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Counseling and Personnel Services School of Education, University of Maryland - College Park
Co-Chair: Cecilia Ford, Ph.D., Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Objectives

1. Familiarize biomedical researchers and academic medical leaders with salient social science research on gender relevant to mentoring
2. Develop recommendations to NIH for future investments in research to maximize participation of all scientists in the biomedical research enterprise

Women Speaking Up
Cecilia Ford, PhD
Drawing from research on women speaking up in workplace meetings, Professor Ford will offer a data-based critique of common “fix the woman” advice regarding ways of communicating. Dr. Ford’s data demonstrate a variety of ways in which women already command effective speaking strategies. Such findings and the methods used to arrive at them are resources for mentors and mentees who wish to find alternatives to the gender schemas that dominate our views of ourselves and others. The spotlight should be on what we are doing right so that we can move away from a “fix the woman” attitude and focus instead on our real work, while simultaneously continuing to question persistent and consequential obstacles to the advancement of underrepresented groups in specific workplaces.

An Evidence-Based Approach to Effective Mentoring
Linda Pololi, MD
Dr. Pololi will discuss the application of principles and evidence-based practices from adult education and psychology fields to the mentoring and career development of faculty in biomedical careers. Such approaches can provide an alternative framework for mentoring and mentor training beyond traditional methods of mentoring. The parallels between needed cultural change in medical schools and cultural change to transform mentoring inform the work of the National Initiative on Gender, Culture and Leadership in Medicine: C – Change, (a partnership of five medical schools collaborating to address the lack of women and under-represented minority faculty in leadership positions in U.S. medical schools and to facilitate all faculty in reaching their potential).

Mentoring as Energy of Activation for Women: The “Chemistry” of the Rate-Limiting Step
Ruth Fassinger, PhD
Borrowing concepts from the science of chemical reactions, Dr. Fassinger will highlight common barriers to women’s optimal career development, with particular focus on mentoring as a means of overcoming some of those barriers. Data from her large national studies of the careers of highly achieving women (National Study of Women’s Achievement) and women in industrial chemistry (Project ENHANCE) will be presented to illustrate salient issues in the vocational psychology of women. The importance – and challenges – of mentoring in the career development of women will be discussed, and recommendations that foster the career success of women in biomedical careers will be offered.

Procedures that Activate or Mitigate Gender Bias in Scientific Review
Molly Carnes, MD, MS
Dr. Carnes will talk about the changes made in the solicitation and review processes in the NIH Director's Pioneer Award and its relationship to the gender of the scientists selected. She will emphasize how several aspects of the initial round in which no women were selected mimic social science experiments examining conditions that lead to activation and application of gender biases in evaluation.

 

 

To keep informed about the Working Group and NIH-wide efforts, please sign up for our LISTSERV.