Descriptive Statistics
Ninety-five women participated in the mission and all were eligible for the study. Seventy (74%) were medical volunteers (physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals) and twenty-five (26%) were non-medical volunteers (administrators, translators, or students). Volunteers came from 23 different countries and 68% (n = 65) were from LMICs (Fig. 1).
Pre-mission, post-mission, and both surveys were completed by 85% (n = 81), 81% (n = 77), and 74% (n = 70) of volunteers, respectively. Volunteers had an average of 8.1 ± 7.3 years’ experience working with Operation Smile. The majority of participants had been on 11–15 prior missions with the organization. Twenty-nine percent of volunteers had prior experience as a team leader and 28% as an educator for Operation Smile. Volunteers from HICs and LMICs had similar mission roles (p = 0.58), number of prior missions (p = 0.47), duration of volunteerism (p = 0.69), team leader experience (p = 0.28) and educator experience (p = 0.18) (Table 1).
Table 1
Demographics of Survey Respondents from high income countries (HIC) and lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs)
† Doctor includes anesthesiologists, cleft surgeons, PACU physicians, pediatricians; Nonmedical includes administrators, translators, and students; Nurses includes clinical coordinators, operating room, PACU and ward nurses; Other medical includes dentists, speech language pathologists, child life specialists, medical records, biomedical engineer, and photography technicians.
Female representation in home environments
In their home countries, nurses tended to work in female dominated workplaces whereas physicians tended to work in male-dominated environments (Fig. 2). Volunteers from Europe and Latin America worked with more women professionally versus sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and North America. Only 3 volunteers originated from East Asia and the Pacific (Fig. 3A). Volunteers from LMICs and HICs had similar estimates for prevalence of female healthcare workers at home (p = 0.66) (Fig. 3B).
Mentorship
Most women had mentored or received mentorship from other woman before (Table 2). 73% (n = 59) had previously received mentorship from a colleague, most of whom were women (90%, n = 53). Similarly, 75% of women (n = 61) had previously mentored a colleague; most of their mentees were female (93%, n = 57). Nearly all volunteers wanted to be mentors for others, especially for women (97% and 97%, respectively). (Fig. 4) However, women from both HICs and LMICs struggle to get enough mentorship. 98% of volunteers (n = 79) felt their mentorship was insufficient and 95% (n = 77) preferred a female mentor. Volunteer role (doctor, nurse, other medical, non-medical) was not associated with receiving (p = 0.129) or giving (p = 0.118) mentorship.
Table 2
Prior experience with female mentorship
|
HIC
(n = 22)
|
LMIC
(n = 56)
|
Overall
(N = 81)
|
P-value
|
Had experience working in an all- female professional environment
|
8 (36%)
|
18 (32%)
|
26 (32%)
|
0.91
|
Received mentorship from a colleague
|
17 (77%)
|
39 (70%)
|
59 (73%)
|
0.97
|
Received mentorship from a female colleague
|
16 (73%)
|
34 (61%)
|
53 (65%)
|
0.73
|
Mentored a colleague
|
17 (77%)
|
41 (73%)
|
61 (75%)
|
0.64
|
Mentored a female colleague
|
15 (68%)
|
39 (70%)
|
57 (70%)
|
0.90
|
Living in a HIC versus LMIC did not influence prior experience receiving mentorship (77% vs 70%, p = 0.97) or being mentored by a woman (73% vs 61%, p = 0.73). Similarly, giving mentorship to a colleague (77% vs 73%, p = 0.64) or female colleague (68% vs 70%, p = 0.90) was equivalent in HICs and LMICs.
At this mission, many women gave and received mentorship for the first time. 68% (n = 52) mentored others; 42% (n = 5 of 12) who had never mentored before became mentors for the first time. 77% (n = 59) of volunteers received mentorship.15 participants had never been mentored before, and 11 of them (73%) received mentorship for the first time. Mentorship during the mission had a trickle-down effect for participant home countries. 100% established professional contacts to maintain in the future and 100% felt empowered to mentor working women at home (Fig. 5).
Experience in prior all-female environments
Twenty-six women (32%) had prior experience working in an all-female professional environment. Prior work in an all-female environment was not associated the with volunteer’s profession (p = 0.807), self-reported gender equity at home (p = 0.529), or prior mentorship experience (giving p = 0.930; receiving p = 1.00).
Leadership development
Participants anticipated being empowered by the all-female mission experience with 98% expecting empowerment before and 99% reporting empowerment afterwards (p = 0.196). Volunteers did not expect to enjoy the mission as much as they did, with 75% expecting to enjoy the experience before versus 87% reporting they enjoyed the experience after (p = 0.040).
Only 16% (n = 12) of participants were team leaders. Nevertheless 99% (n = 76) felt inspired to pursue leadership positions in their home countries and 93% (n = 72) within Operation Smile. 99% (n = 76) of participants felt motivated to advance professionally in their career and 97% (n = 75) wanted to work with other women in their career.