The impact of a virtual negotiation training course on female trainees.

Background: Negotiation training has been posited to help reduce gender wage disparities. We sought to evaluate the impact of a virtual negotiations training course (VNTC) on female trainees.
Methods: 111 female trainees participated in the course; 42 completed both pre- and post-course surveys.
Results: 95.5% had no prior negotiation training. After the course, more trainees reported feeling "pretty comfortable" or "extremely comfortable" with initiating negotiation (8.3% vs. 94.1%, p < 0.001) and negotiation strategy (0% vs. 50.0%, p < 0.001). Three months later, 44% had negotiated for compensation; 63.6% felt the negotiation went "better than expected". Compared to the last major negotiation they had prior to taking the course, trainees were more likely to state that their last major negotiation after the course went "very well" or "extremely well" (2.0% vs. 50.0%, p < 0.001).
Conclusion: Most female medical trainees do not get negotiation training; however, these data demonstrate a significant benefit of such training.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest This work was funded by the American Medical Association's Joan Giambalvo Award for the advancement of women, and resulted in the creation of a virtual negotiation training course (negotiation-101.square.site). Other conflicts of interest (unrelated to the current work): I sit on the Board of Directors of Protean Biodiagnostics. I receive royalties from Uptodate (where I am the Breast Surgery Section editor) as well as from Yale University (for my course called “An Introduction to Breast Cancer” on the Coursera platform). I have also received honoraria from Sanofi Aventis, Guardant, Athenex, Puma Therapeutics, Novartis, and Lumicell. I am on the speakers bureau for Merck.
(Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Inc.)