Health care profession’s women at leadership position in Pakistan’s societal culture: enablers, barriers, and future strategies.

Objectives: The study aims to explore the enablers & barriers for women in healthcare leadership and to explore the strategies to promote women in leadership positions in Pakistan’s specific societal culture.
Methods: In this qualitative exploratory study semi-structured interviews of 16 women holding leadership positions in the healthcare profession i.e. medical and dental (basic or clinical sciences) were included. The data were collected until saturation was achieved. The data was analyzed in MS Excel. Deductive and Inductive thematic analysis was done.
Results: Thirty-eight codes were generated that were combined in the form of categories. The major themes that emerged from the data were: elevating factors, the shackles holding them back, let’s bring them up; men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Elevating factors were intrinsic motivation and exceptional qualifications while the shackles were related to gender bias, male insecurities, and lack of political background. It was noteworthy that differences in gender roles were highly defined by culture and religion.
Conclusions: There is need to change the perception of South Asian society and redefine gender roles through media and individual attempts. Women must take charge of their choices and believe in themselves. The institutional policies to help promote gender equality would be mentorship programs for new faculty, gender-responsive training for everyone, equal opportunities for all, and maintaining gender diversity on all committees.