The good news is that women have been entering medicine in increasing numbers for more than three decades. Within the broader context of the evolving role of women in American society, women physicians continue to explore new career paths - paths that include both clinical medicine and medical leadership. These trends are creating a quiet gender revolution - one that brings new opportunities and tensions.
While the progress of women doctors has sometimes been a slow, albeit continuing journey, it may not be long before women dominate medicine, especially as the number of male applicants and matriculants has been declining. Only seven specialties had more than 1,000 female physicians in 1970, whereas 25 specialties had more than 1,000 female physicians by 2006 and 35 by 2019.Īlthough most women physicians are still more prominent in primary care specialties such as family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, and obstetrics/gynecology as well as psychiatry and anesthesiology, younger graduates today are choosing residencies in virtually every specialty, including cardiothoracic and neurosurgery. In terms of specialties, there have been significant shifts. medical school students (50.5%) were women.Īt the same time, while medical school classes continued to include more racially and ethnically diverse students, those groups remain significantly underrepresented in the overall physician workforce when compared with the general population and the patients they serve. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges’ annual report on medical school enrollment, 2019 marked the first time that the majority of U.S.
The rise in the number of female physicians is the direct result of a steady increase in the number of female medical students. Men continue to dominate some ophthalmology subspecialties. However, gains have been slower in leadership roles, with Sun noting that as recently as 2018, of the 111 ophthalmology programs across the country, were chaired by men. This means that only slightly more than 10% of programs – barely double digits in absolute numbers – are led by women.
In a letter in the Women in Ophthalmology (WIO) website, WIO President Grace Sun, MD, wrote that the number of female medical students is approaching 50% and ophthalmology has made gains, with the percentage of residents that are female increasing from 29% in 2000 to almost 40% today. A decade later, women make up 36.3% of all practicing physicians in the country.
ALL THAT REMAINS PART 1 UPDATE
By 2012, with the publication of the update of the original monograph, titled Lessons Learned: Stories from Women in Medical Management, 30.4% of practicing physicians in the United States were women. The sense that the role of leader within the health care system is not an appropriate career goal for a woman physician was just beginning to change with the publication of a 1995 monograph titled Women in Medicine and Management: A Mentoring Guide.Īt that time, women represented about 19% of all American physicians, a jump from just under 8% in 1970.
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