Gender differences in cardiothoracic surgery letters of recommendation

Objective: To investigate whether or not gender influences letters of recommendation for cardiothoracic surgery fellowship.

Methods: From applications to an Accreditation Council Graduate Medical Education cardiothoracic surgery fellowship program between 2016 and 2021, applicant and author characteristics were examined with descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and Pearson χ² tests. Linguistic software was used to assess communication differences in letters of recommendation, stratified by author and applicant gender. An additional higher-level analysis was then performed using a generalized estimating equations model to examine linguistic differences among author-applicant gender pairs.

Results: Seven hundred thirty-nine recommendation letters extracted from 196 individual applications were analyzed; 90% (n = 665) of authors were men and 55.8% (n = 412) of authors were cardiothoracic surgeons. Compared with women authors, authors who are men wrote more authentic (P = .01) and informal (P = .03) recommendation letters. When writing for women applicants, authors who are men were more likely to display their own leadership and status (P = .03) and discuss women applicants' social affiliations (P = .01), like occupation of applicant's father or husband. Women authors wrote longer letters (P = .03) and discussed applicants' work (P = .01) more often than authors who are men. They also mentioned leisure activities (P = .03) more often when writing for women applicants.

Conclusions: Our work identifies gender-specific differences in letters of recommendation. Women applicants may be disadvantaged because their recommendation letters are significantly more likely to focus on their social ties, leisure activities, and the status of the letter writer. Author and reviewer awareness of gender-biased use of language will aid in improvements to the candidate selection process.