Time to promotion among racial/ethnic minority and female academic medical center faculty

Objective We sought to compare time to promotion by faculty race/ethnicity and gender across academic medical centers (AMCs) in the United States. Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort analysis of data from the Association of American Medical College's (AAMC) Faculty Roster data from 1983-2000 (n=93,402). Time to promotion was calculated as the length of time between beginning one academic rank and achieving the next rank. We examined the relationship between time to promotion and individual and institutional characteristics using a shared frailty model to account for the within-cluster (institution) correlation. Individual characteristics included race, sex, degree type (MD, MD/PhD, PhD), age, and year when rank began by cohort. Several institutional characteristics were examined, including median yearly number of faculty members, median yearly proportion of historically underrepresented minority (hURM) faculty, median yearly proportion of female faculty. We included Assistant Professor and Associate Professor appointments that began between 1983 and 2000 to allow for ten years of follow-up for promotion. Individuals who did not experience promotion within 10 years are censored at 10 years. Analyses were conducted separately for basic and clinical faculty. Results Among clinical faculty promoted from Assistant to Associate Professor, African Americans were 41.4% and Hispanics were 12.2% less likely to be promoted than whites (p<.0001 and p=0.0004); females were 31.9% less likely to be promoted than males (p<.0001). From Associate to Full Professor African Americans were 24.2% less likely to be promoted than whites (p=0.0002); females were 22.1% less likely to be promoted than males (p<.0001). Among basic science faculty promoted from Assistant to Associate Professor, Hispanics were 19.7% less likely to be promoted than whites (p=0.0333); females were 15.2% less likely to be promoted than males (p<.0001). From Associate to Full Professor African Americans were 51.4% less likely to be promoted than whites (p=0.01). Females in basic science are 1.6 times more likely to be promoted from Associate to Professor than females in clinical science (p<.0001). Males in basic science are 1.3 times more likely to be promoted than males in clinical science (p<.0001). Conclusion Disparities in time to promotion by race/ethnicity and gender were observed among tenure-track faculty at AMCs. Differences also existed between basic and clinical faculty, with basic scientists more likely to be promoted. Institutional characteristics such as proportion of faculty at an institution who were female or hURM did not attenuate the disparities among female and hRUM faculty in time to promotion.