Gender and Letters of Recommendation: A Linguistic Comparison of the Impact of Gender on General Surgery Residency Applicants ✰ .

Autor: French JC; Department of General Surgery, Digestive Disease and Surgery Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio. Electronic address: frenchj2@ccf.org., Zolin SJ; Department of General Surgery, Digestive Disease and Surgery Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio., Lampert E; Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio., Aiello A; Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Cleveland Clinic Learner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio., Bencsath KP; Department of General Surgery, Digestive Disease and Surgery Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio., Ritter KA; Department of General Surgery, Digestive Disease and Surgery Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio., Strong AT; Department of General Surgery, Digestive Disease and Surgery Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio; Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio., Lipman JM; Department of General Surgery, Digestive Disease and Surgery Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio; Department of Colorectal Surgery, Digestive Disease and Surgery Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio., Valente MA; Department of Colorectal Surgery, Digestive Disease and Surgery Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio., Prabhu AS; Department of General Surgery, Digestive Disease and Surgery Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Journal of surgical education [J Surg Educ] 2019 Jul - Aug; Vol. 76 (4), pp. 899-905. Date of Electronic Publication: 2018 Dec 28.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jsurg.2018.12.007
Abstrakt: Objective: We investigated letters of recommendation for general surgery residency applicants to determine if any gender-based disparities exist.
Design: A dictionary of over 400 terms describing applicants and 24 unique categories into which these terms were classified was created. Word count and language comparisons were performed using linguistic analysis software to assess for differences in applicant characterization, letter length, and writing style between male and female applicants and letter writers.
Setting: A large, Midwest, academic general surgery residency program.
Participants: Five hundred and fifty-nine letters of recommendation received during the 2015 and 2016 interview cycles were selected for analysis.
Results: Average word count was approximately equal for male and female applicants (503 vs 508, respectively). Female writers wrote longer letters (mean word count 545.5 vs 497.1, p = 0.028). "Standout" terms were more likely to be used to describe female applicants. Otherwise no statistically significant differences in applicant characterization were discovered.
Conclusions: Letters of recommendation for general surgery are written using similar descriptive terms and lengths for male and female applicants. This suggests that there is no specific gender disadvantage with regard to letters of recommendation when applying for general surgery residency.
(Copyright © 2018 Association of Program Directors in Surgery. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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