How Do We Prevent Female Physiologists from Leaving?

How Do We Prevent Female Physiologists from Leaving?

By Gina Yosten, PhD

Not long ago, a graduate student from another lab asked to meet with me. She was only halfway through her second year of graduate school but had already produced enough high-quality data to construct her first manuscript and present at a national meeting. Her grades were outstanding, and she was, by all measures, excelling. In spite of these accomplishments, she told me she felt like a failure and that she was thinking of quitting.

Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon story. I have personally encountered many, many female trainees from institutions across the U.S. who have expressed similar feelings, the majority of whom ultimately left academia, and some have exited science entirely. Many hypotheses have been proposed, but the data paint a very clear picture: Although women now comprise the majority of our graduate student body, we are, as a discipline, wholly unprepared to effectively mentor them. Based on my own experiences and those of my female peers, I offer up the following steps that we as a scientific community can take to keep our brightest stars from burning out. 

Listen. Many women in science do not feel heard, which leads them to believe that what they say is not important. This in turn contributes to imposter syndrome, which is rampant among trainees, particularly women. Mentors can greatly impact the lives of their trainees by simply, but actively, listening. Close your laptop, silence your phones and look your trainees in the eyes as they speak. In so doing, mentors can send a clear message to trainees that what they say does matter and that they can trust us to listen. 

“Although women now comprise the majority of our graduate student body, we are, as a discipline, wholly unprepared to effectively mentor them.”

Create a supportive lab environment. Foster an internal culture of collaboration where lab members are highly encouraged to help, rather than compete with each other, and one in which each person’s success is viewed as the group’s success. Remember that each laboratory microenvironment is dictated entirely by the attitudes and opinions of the principal investigator (PI). If the microenvironment is inhospitable to trainees, only the PI is capable of exacting change, and it is their responsibility to do so. 

Mitigate unrealistic expectations. People who are well-rested and well-adjusted are able to think more clearly, demonstrate greater concentration, are more efficient and produce higher quality work. Why then do many mentors encourage and sometimes even mandate that their trainees spend 60+ hours per week at the bench? The mentors who have the best track records for effectively training female students recognize the unsustainability and impracticality of this approach, instead urging their trainees to take time for their families, personal affairs and themselves. 

Share your own struggles. Many women, particularly those who are mentored by female faculty, see all that their mentors manage and wrongly believe that they will be unable to perform at their mentor’s level. This is often because faculty tend to hide the hardships they face, leaving female trainees to believe that they are the only ones who are struggling. Reassuring trainees that their experience is valid, that it feels difficult because it is difficult, and that in spite of those difficulties, they are performing well is an important part of ensuring women build the confidence they need to succeed. 

Gina Yosten, PhD, is an associate professor of pharmacology and physiology at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine in Missouri. She is also editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.

This article was originally published in the July 2022 issue of The Physiologist Magazine.