Women have been underrepresented in professional roles in movies, causing concern about perpetuation of gender stereotypes.1-4 We examined the portrayal of women as physicians in US movies.
This cross-sectional study was filed as not regulated with the University of Michigan institutional review board and followed the STROBE reporting guideline. We searched IMDb.com for movies released between 1990 and 2020 using references of physicians in plot summaries, key words, and casting credits. Movie and physician characteristics were coded, including gender of physician-characters, writers, directors, and producers. Binary gender categories were assigned using names, corresponding photographs, and film scenes. Similarly, race and ethnicity of lead physician-characters were categorized as either White or other race and ethnicity by visual inspection. We estimated lead physician-character age using the age on IMDb.com of the actor at the time of movie release and manually reviewed the portrayed age of the physician-character. Analyses were performed between January 31 and April 3, 2023; missing data were excluded.