56.0 A Tale of Two Departments: How Implicit Bias Divides Us and Can Unite Us

This presentation for all child and adolescent psychiatrists working within academic or other healthcare organizations will provide a primer in principles of implicit bias and bias interrupters that are directly applicable to attaining greater gender parity within child psychiatry. Gender equality at all faculty levels has long been a top priority for institutional leaders and visionaries, and yet, the percentage of women at higher faculty ranks continues to lag, which is striking given that women have comprised at least 40 percent of medical school classes over the past two decades, suggesting that the dearth of women leaders is not a “pipeline” problem. There have been enough women in medical school classes to translate to equal numbers at the top. Women physicians face barriers to career progression and are under-represented at senior levels. Although there have undoubtedly been a myriad of stubborn factors driving that persistent disparity, in this presentation, we will focus on implicit bias and bias interrupters, a burgeoning area of research.