ABSTRACT
The obstacles and opportunities that exist for women in healthcare are the yin and yang of where we are now. It is common wisdom that timing is everything. The obstacles that exist for women at all levels including those for leadership positions are: institutional and individual conscious and unconscious bias, sexual harassment, penalties for motherhood, workplace-related burnout, and imposter syndrome. For those issues that affect all women, our efforts to remove, or at least diminish, the obstacles should be aimed at not just for our professions, but for all working women. Institutional bias occurs when procedures and policies lead to discriminatory outcomes. These biases can be conscious or unconscious. These biases influence careers at every step of the way—recruitment, evaluation, promotion to leadership roles, and pay. Policies requiring full-time employment, no paid time off, no parental or family leave, or inability to reset the promotion clock in academic medicine have a disproportionate effect on women and reflect institutional bias.
