{"doi":"10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.41344","title":"Women Oncologists’ Perceptions and Factors Associated With Decisions to Pursue Academic vs Nonacademic Careers in Oncology","abstract":"Importance: Women outnumber men in US medical school enrollment, but they represent less than 40% of academic oncology faculty. Objective: To identify the key factors associated with female oncologists' decision to pursue academic or nonacademic oncology practice and to characterize their perceptions about their current career. Design, Setting, and Participants: This cross-sectional survey study was distributed through email and social media to female physicians in academic and nonacademic oncology practice in the United States. The survey was open for 3 months, from August 1 to October 31, 2020. Main Outcomes and Measures: No single primary study outcome was established because of the cross-sectional nature of the survey. Data were collected anonymously and analyzed using t tests for continuous variables and χ2 tests for categorical variables. Results: Among the 667 female respondents, 422 (63.2%) identified as academic oncologists and 245 (36.8%) identified as nonacademic oncologists. Approximately 25% of respondents reported that their spouse or partner (156 [23.5%]) and/or family (176 [26.4%]) extremely or moderately affected their decision to pursue academic practice. Academic oncologists perceived the biggest sacrifice of pursuing academics to be time with loved ones (181 [42.9%]). Nonacademic oncologists perceived the biggest sacrifice of pursuing academics to be pressure for academic promotion (102 [41.6%]). Respondents had different perceptions of how their gender affected their ability to obtain a chosen job, with 116 academic oncologists (27.6%) and 101 nonacademic oncologists (41.2%) reporting a positive or somewhat positive impact (P = .001). More than half of the women surveyed (54.6% academic oncologists [230]; 50.6% nonacademic oncologists [123]; P = .61) believed they were less likely to be promoted compared with male colleagues. Academic and nonacademic oncologists reported rarely or never having a sense of belonging in their work environment (33 [7.9%] and 5 [2.0%]; P < .001). Most respondents reported that they would choose the same career path again (301 academic oncologists [71.3%]; 168 nonacademic oncologists [68.6%]); however, 92 academic oncologists (21.9%) reported they were likely to pursue a career outside of academic oncology in the next 5 years. Conclusions and Relevance: This survey study found that a spouse or partner and/or family were factors in the career choice of both academic and nonacademic oncologists and that female gender was largely perceived to adversely affect job promotion. Given that more than 20% of female academic oncologists were considering leaving academia, gender inequality is at high risk of continuing if the culture is not addressed.","journal":"JAMA Network Open","year":2021,"id":164037,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":40,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9013,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":684713,"name":"Grace C. Blitzer","orcid":"0000-0003-3178-3004","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":684714,"name":"Aleksandra Kuczmarska‐Haas","orcid":"0000-0003-4718-7717","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":383650,"name":"Susan C. Pitt","orcid":"0000-0002-6978-3408","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":293159,"name":"Fumiko Chino","orcid":"0000-0003-0498-488X","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":339894,"name":"Trаng Lе","orcid":"0009-0008-9148-2848","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":684715,"name":"Wendy Allen‐Rhoades","orcid":"0000-0002-5656-9568","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":474825,"name":"Suzanne Cole","orcid":"0000-0001-8390-6315","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":684716,"name":"Ariela L. Marshall","orcid":"0000-0001-7388-0422","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":273700,"name":"Molly Carnes","orcid":"0000-0002-4208-0091","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":31122,"name":"Reshma Jagsi","orcid":"0000-0001-6562-1228","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":685653,"name":"Narjust Duma","orcid":null,"position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":684712,"name":"Emily Merfeld","orcid":"0000-0003-0858-9115","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":26,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:45:27.031465Z","pmid":"34967880","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}