Dr. Julia Files, physician and researcher, inspired and activated our team to prove we weren’t crazy. Here’s the story of the proverbial straw that broke Julia’s back:

A sinking feeling overtook me as I realized what had just happened. I was an invited speaker at an event where I shared the program with three male physicians each of us presenting topics pertaining to our areas of expertise. The moderator (male) ended the program by thanking “Drs. X, Y, Z and Julia.” Wow! This wasn’t the first time I’d been inappropriately addressed by my first name in a professional setting, but it was certainly the most public and glaring example. Had he intended to strip me of my professional title? Did anyone else notice? Does this happen to other women, or is it just me? Instead of being appropriately proud of my contribution to the program I was stuck trying to process why this happened to me (again). Then just two weeks later, it happened to my friend, colleague and co-investigator, Dr. Anita Mayer. Dr. Mayer was speaking at a program and I was a member of the audience. As if on cue, the male moderator ended with a thank you to the speakers, “Drs. X, Y, Z and Anita”! This time my “wow” propelled me to action.

So Dr. Files assembled and led our team to study this phenomenon in a scientific manner. An informal poll confirmed that every female physician we asked, regardless of practice type, specialty or geographic location, had experienced this. Worse, on the few occasions women had spoken up, they were treated as petty, oversensitive, or worse, mocked. We searched; there wasn’t anything published in the literature that validated our experience. We even looked at business, law, science and other fields. Nothing.

So we set up our own study to compare gender differences in introductions. The venue was Medical Grand Rounds, which at most medical centers is THE formal weekly educational session for faculty and learners. The majority of participants in both the role of speaker and audience member were peers holding MD, PhD, or MD/ PhD degrees. At Medical Grand Rounds one expects formality in speaker introductions, and, as a result, there really shouldn’t be gender differences.

Analysis of data from six months of videotaped introductions left us gratified, validated and saddened at the same time. We confirmed that whether doctors are introduced as “Dr.” depends on the gender of who introduces them. Women introducing any Grand Rounds speaker used “Dr.” virtually all the time (96%) regardless of the speaker’s gender. Men, on the other hand, were less formal overall: across all speaker introductions by men, only 2/3 ever included “Dr.”