November 12, 1999

Despite the large number of women faculty recruited to the MGH, far fewer women advance to senior faculty positions than men. One of the reasons for this lack of parity is the career sacrifice many women make to raise their families. The MGH, however, has resources to help women advance their careers.

In 1997, The Women in Academic Medicine Committee was established to help facilitate the academic careers of women at the MGH. To help address work/family issues, the committee developed the Claflin Distinguished Scholar Awards, named for the founding chair of the committee, Jane D. Claflin, honorary trustee. The awards, funded by the Executive Committee on Research (ECOR), are given to junior faculty women to help sustain their research productivity during the child-rearing years. The Office for Research and Technology and the MGH Office for Women's Careers administer and promote the awards.

The Claflin Awards are two-year grants with a maximum of $30,000 in direct costs per year and may be used for support of a technician, postdoctoral fellow or graduate student, as well as to pay for supplies.

"The path to becoming senior faculty at the MGH is a lengthy process, with many criteria," says Suzanne Metallo, associate director of the Office for Women's Careers at the MGH. "For many junior women faculty there is the additional challenge of child rearing and the impact it can have at the most vulnerable point in their academic careers. Transitional funding, like the Claflin Awards, is critical in facilitating career continuity and preventing attrition among the junior ranks."

The first grants were awarded in 1997 to Elizabeth Hohmann, MD, of the MGH Infectious Disease Unit; Sylvie Breton, PhD, of the MGH Renal Unit; and Tongwen Wang, PhD, of MGH Pediatric Surgery (who has since departed the MGH to continue her research at another institution). The three recipients have recently finished the cycle of funding from the Claflin Scholar Awards, while successfully maintaining their research productivity and continuing to meet the demands of motherhood.

"This grant came at the perfect time. I could no longer support my research from smaller grants but wasn't quite ready to get 'major league' research funding," says Hohmann, who received funding to finish testing a series of oral vaccines. "I think it is 110 percent true that women in medicine are faced with making major decisions about their family at the same time that they are on the brink of becoming senior faculty. Young women faculty are supposed to be on the same level as their male peers, but they have this huge personal undertaking that most men don't have," she says. According to Hohmann, women faculty must live up to both the gold standard of being a good mother and the high standards of being a researcher.

"I used the funding to hire a research assistant," says Breton, who received funding to continue her research in the acidification of the male reproductive system. "I had just adopted a child from China who required special care, and I had to cut back on my work hours. It makes me happy to know that the MGH realizes the challenge that woman faculty face if they choose to raise a family and supports them. This grant has helped me in recruiting other female researchers to my lab." Breton feels that the funding from the Claflin Awards helped keep her up to date in her research despite her family responsibilities. She recently was promoted to assistant professor.

The recipients of the Claflin Awards are chosen by an internal review committee, made up of PhDs and MDs, both male and female. The 2000 Claflin Scholar Awards request for applications will be announced this month with a deadline in early 2000. Applications will be available through the Office for Research and Technology and online at http://mghra.partners.org