Medical staff Hospital

Gender identity a b s t r a c t Aim: To analyze women’s advancement compared with that of men and to determine whether advance-ment in hierarchical status differs from advancement in the professional recognition achieved by women from 1996 to 2008. Methods: A retrospective study was carried in Hospital Clínic in Barcelona. We analyzed data on tempo-rary and permanent positions, hierarchy, promotions, specialty, age, and sex among the participants. Results: The female-to male ratio among trainee medical specialists was higher than 1 throughout the study period. After completion of specialist training, the proportion of women with temporary contracts more than doubled that of men. Less than 50 % of women achieved permanent positions compared with 70 % of men. For permanent non-hierarchical and hierarchical positions, the female-to-male ratio grad-ually decreased from 0.5 to below 0.2. Although more than 50 % of trainee specialists were women, the number of female consultants remained 25 % lower than that of men. In 2008, the final year of the study, the percentage of women who had achieved the grade of senior consultant was one-third that of men (29.5 % of men vs 10.9 % of women; p < 0.0001)