Major wage disparities persists among doctors of gender and race

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Wage Disparities Persist Among Doctors On Gender And Race Lines

There are many fights for change taking place in America right now: women’s rights, civil rights, gun reform and last but certainly not least, wage disparities.

To that end, a new article in Reuters points to the fact that African-American doctors earn $50,000 less than their white counterparts on average. As if that isn’t disturbing enough, it’s reported that African-American women earn $100,000 less than their brothas on average.

Leslie Kane, Senior Director or Medscape Business of Medicine and author of the Physician Compensation Report which gathered this information, offers suggestions at how to change this:

“Awareness and transparency can begin to make a difference,” Kane said. “Our physician experts have told us that women in medicine often have no idea what their male colleagues make.”

“As in many professions,” she said, “salary is simply never discussed, so women don’t know that they are being paid less. Discussion between colleagues and recognition can spark change, which we’ve seen with other industries.”

Kane also acknowledges that women often pursue fields of medicine that generally pay less than the field that afford other doctors’ Ferarri’s and Rovers.

“The gender gap, notably among specialists, remained unchanged, with men earning about 36 percent more than women specialists,” Leslie Kane, Senior Director, Medscape Business of Medicine and author of the report, told Reuters Health. “It’s quite possible that bias was one of the contributing factors.”

“But in addition,” she said by email, “most of the specialties that women choose – with the exception of plastic surgery – are among the lower-paying ones, such as obstetrics/gynecology, pediatrics, public health and preventive medicine, and family medicine.”

Why is it so difficult to just pay people what they’re worth based on merit?