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12 Ophthalmology Business • July 2016 by Liz Hillman, Staff Writer are traditionally lower reimbursed. Dr. Christmann named pediatric ophthal- mology, medical retina, and glaucoma as a few examples. "About 40% of pediatric ophthal- mologists were women in 2013," said Dr. Christmann, who has devoted a lot of time to analyzing data—much of it from surveys conducted by the American Academy of Ophthalmol- ogy—about gender disparities in the field. "Whereas in refractive surgery, which I think we can all agree is high- ly reimbursed, there was only about 8% [women] at that time." More recent data suggest this trend is increasing. Dr. Christmann said 2015 numbers reveal 43% of pe- diatric ophthalmologists are women. As for why women might pick some subspecialties over others, Dr. Christmann speaks to her own expe- rience. "I would like to think that ev- eryone has equal opportunity for all specialties and people choose what appeals to them. Years ago when I was a medical student and then a resident, I was already a mom," the pediatric ophthalmologist of more than 30 years said. "Unlike a lot of my colleagues who felt very uncomfort- able working with moms and small children, it was perfectly normal to me because I did it all the time. "I would expect that's happening to a fair number of women who feel like I did; they think, 'I'm choosing this because I love children, and I know I will be able to find a job any- where,'" Dr. Christmann said. Why would subspecialties like pediatric ophthalmology, for exam- ple, have a lower reimbursement rate though? "One reason is that children take more time, and secondly, a lot of to other medical specialties. 1 Ac- cording to Doximity's findings, male ophthalmologists make an average of 36% more than women, while male physicians across the board made an average of 21% more than their female counterparts. Why the disparity, and why does it appear to be so much greater in ophthalmology than other medical specialties? The reasons are many, said Lin- da Christmann, MD, president of Women in Ophthalmology (WIO), a nonprofit organization comprised of ophthalmologists, ophthalmologists in training, and researchers in the vision field. WIO's mission is to en- hance and improve the professional environment for female ophthalmol- ogists. Perhaps the largest factor is that women, more than men, have chosen subspecialties that Some disparity comes down to individual decisions, but other barriers may exist T he idea of a pay gap be- tween men and women has been a hot topic as of late, but where does ophthalmology fall on the issue? According to unofficial data, male ophthalmologists make, on average, about $95,000 more than their female counterparts. Doximity, a social network for physicians, compiled information from its Career Navigator (self-re- ported salary data and other statistics from its more than 35,000 members) that suggests ophthalmology has 1 of the largest gender pay gaps compared Women in ophthalmology still behind in pay, leadership roles

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