What was far more revealing was the limited awareness many men in our survey had about the challenges faced by their female peers.

These experiences of discrimination are all too familiar to many professional women, particularly in STEM fields. In response to our survey, women shared numerous stories of gender bias, including being shut out of promotions, talked over or ignored in meetings, having their technical expertise questioned, and being told they were too aggressive or difficult to work with. Women, on the other hand, still perceive a highly unequal workplace rife with systematic barriers. Our latest research about gender in the health tech workplace made the challenge we face much clearer: Many men seem to think sufficient progress has been made and that women now enjoy equal standing and opportunity. In our experience training future leaders in health tech innovation at Stanford University’s Byers Center for Biodesign, we’ve struggled with the question of how to advance equality in our field. Our recent survey of 403 people working in health tech, for example, found that 90% of respondents were in a company where the majority of senior leaders are men. While health care is often considered a leader in gender diversity, with women making up more than half its workforce, health technology looks much more like the tech industry when it comes to gender, race, and other forms of diversity.

Health technology is a growing field at the intersection of health care and high tech, providing medical devices, digital health tools, and health care IT.

Winscan