Let’s Get Personal: Academic Office Displays and Gender

Abstract

Introduction: Differential standards in academic medicine based on gender have been described for self-promoting behavior. Objective: To explore differences in office display of professional and personal items between male and female academic physicians as a proxy for self-promotion. Methods: A university hospital’s faculty was invited to participate in a study on office setup. Participants were blinded to the study aim. Investigators evaluated offices to assess the number of professional and personal displays. De-identified data on participant characteristics and office physical characteristics were recorded. Correlations with the number of items displayed were analyzed by univariable and multivariable Poisson regression. Results: Forty-eight physicians participated: 23 (47.9%) from emergency medicine, 9 (18.8%) from surgery, and 16 (33.3%) from internal medicine. The median number of professional displays was 5.0 for women (interquartile range [IQR] = 3.0-9.0) and 6.0 for men (IQR = 2.0-12.0). Controlling for specialty and academic rank, no significant difference existed in professional display rates by women (incidence rate ratio = 1.1, 95% confidence interval = 0.8-1.4). The median number of personal displays was 14.5 items for women (IQR = 8.0-25.0) and 6.0 items for men (IQR = 3.0-15.0), with a significantly different rate (incidence rate ratio = 1.4, 95% confidence interval = 1.2-1.7) when we controlled for specialty, generation, rank, and office characteristics. Conclusion: Women displayed more personal items than did men, with no difference in professional display rates. Future studies should examine this difference to understand its cause, which may be linked to differences in academic promotion between men and women.