Career obstacles for women in medicine: an overview

Abstract

Purpose This article describes the current position of women in the ®eld of medicine.Procedures Material was gathered using a MEDLINE search for recent articles on women's career progress in medicine and data from the Association of American Medical Colleges.Main ®ndings Although women now make up a large proportion of the medical student body in industrialized nations, they are still under-represented in a number of disciplines and in the higher echelons of medicine. A number of possible obstacles to career goals that presumably act synergistically include domestic responsibilities, rigidity in career structures and discrimination.Conclusions Organizations in the ®eld of medicine can look to the business world for`best practices' aimed at advancing women to incorporate in their own organization. Medical schools and other institutions are taking the issue seriously as can be seen from the variety of government and institution-based initiatives directed at improving the role of women in medicine.

The Neurosurgical Workforce in North America: A Critical Review of Gender Issues

“…To date, however, no study has examined this topic adequately in medicine, and the few studies that touch on this topic are conflicting (19,23,46). Because academic medicine has been reluctant to adjust its traditional measures of success-such as publications and grants-to appropriately reward individuals who assume more of the teaching load, the promotion of women may be selectively slowed (71,79,85). Gender-based discrimination and harassment still occur in society.…”

Medical career expectations of academically talented high school students: a nationwide cross-sectional study in China

“…gender, family background, indebtedness and academic performance) affect medical students' choices of work location (urban or rural) [14,15], work status (full-time or parttime) [16], profession (surgeon, physician, general practitioner, etc.) [17], career success and drop-out rates [18].…”

Career preference of final year medical students of Ziauddin Medical University

“…Gender influences not only the specialty chosen, but also the reasons that contribute to making this choice. Valian (1999) suggested that men and women prefer specialties that are congruent to their gender schemas; females generally opt for pediatrics and gynecology-obstetrics (Jaafar & Ahmed, 1993;Kassebaum et al, 1996;AAMC, 1999;Reed & Fischer, 2001;Monleon-Moscardo et al, 2003) and men select surgical specialties (Monleon-Moscardo et al, 2003).…”