Who wants to be a surgeon? A study of 300 first year medical students

Fysh, Thomas; Thomas, Geraint M. H.; Ellis, Harold

doi:10.1186/1472-6920-7-2

Cited by 46 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…In line with previous research, surgery was confirmed to be a more popular specialty preference for male students and paediatrics and gynecology for females. 21,23,24 The proportion found in this study of female students preferring certain specialty preferences may mirror the presence of female physicians in these specialties. 6,8 In this study, many specialty preferences of first year female students relate less often to a full-time work preference than the preferences of male students.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 66%

How gender or culture affects first year Dutch and Swedish students' preferences for specialties and work-life issues

et al. 2013

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Objectives: We determine how gender or culture influence new medical students' specialty preferences and work-life issues and explore the relation between work-life issues and each specialty preference. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, we surveyed first year Dutch and Swedish medical students (N=1173, cohorts from 2006-2009) on their preferences for specialties, fulltime or part-time work, and agreement to eleven work-life issues. We tested differences by gender or culture using chi square and logistic regression.Results: Over 93% of all students responded (N=1095). Almost no male first year student preferred gynecology as a specialty. Dutch male students were more often interested in surgery, Dutch female students in paediatrics. In the Netherlands, male students in particular preferred full-time work. In Sweden gender did not influence working hour preferences. Women in both countries expected equality in career-opportunities and care-tasks more than men, and agreed more often that their career would influence their family life. Women with a preference for surgery most often emphasized equality in career opportunities and care tasks. In most preferred specialties female gender related to a lower degree to full-time work. A gender gap in preferred working hours was larger for Dutch students preferring surgery or paediatrics than for Swedish students. For most of the specialty preferences studied, Swedish students anticipated childcare by day cares and Dutch students' informal day care.Conclusions: Early in training, medical students have gendered specialty preferences and work-life preferences which relate to each other. Gender differences are significantly more pronounced in the Netherlands than in Sweden.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 66%

How gender or culture affects first year Dutch and Swedish students' preferences for specialties and work-life issues

et al. 2013

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“…Regardless of nationality, male students were more likely to be interested in surgical careers, while female students were more likely to be interested in pediatrics, obstetrics-gynecology, and general practice [3,5,21,23,24,25]. While progress toward gender parity has been made in some specialties, such as more women entering general surgery in the United States, substantial imbalances remain in many others, including radiology.…”

Section: Gender Segregation In Medical Specialtiesmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Surgical subspecialties, on the other hand, are more entrenched in the traditionally male traits of strength, stamina, and competition [20,22]. These strong cultural influences, unnoticed by most, help to explain why newly-matriculated medical students demonstrate predictable gender segregation along these specialty preferences even before their first day of classes [3,21,23].…”

Section: Gender Segregation In Medical Specialtiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Illusion of Choice: Gender Segregation and the Challenge of Recruiting Women to Radiology

Heitkamp

Norris

Rissing

2017

Journal of the American College of Radiology

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In recent decades, the feminization of medicine has promised equal educational and professional opportunities for women pursuing medical careers [1,2,3]. Yet despite encouraging statistics that now show near even numbers of women (48%) and men (52%) enrolled in US medical schools [4,5], vast inequalities remain. Radiology is just one example of the persistent gender gap that plagues many medical specialties, with women representing fewer than 30% of total practicing radiologists and trainees in the United States [6,7,8]. Radiology educators have long debated the most effective means by which to improve the recruitment of women to our field, but they have managed to identify only potential contributing factors [9,10]. OBSTACLES TO RECRUITING WOMEN IN RADIOLOGYOne barrier to recruitment commonly cited in the literature is the widespread presence of misconceptions regarding radiology as a career [7]. Common misconceptions include: too little impact on patient care, a dark and isolated working environment located far from patient care areas, and too competitive a match process to get a residency position [5,7,11]. Unfortunately, because radiology is absent from the core curricula of most medical schools in the United States, these false stereotypes remain unchecked in the minds of most students when they make their specialty decisions [7,9,10].In addition to the long-held misconceptions about radiology, the poor exposure that medical students get to the field is itself a serious obstacle to the recruitment of women [5,10]. Radiology must compete for student interest against specialties that have the luxury of one or more required rotations within the medical school curriculum. Because radiology is not a required core clerkship at most medical schools, the specialty cannot demonstrate to students just how patient-centered and interactive it really is. Students aren't afforded the opportunity to see the value that radiologists bring to patient care or to even imagine themselves in a radiology career. Instead, the misconceptions go unabated and eventually help to exclude radiology as a potential career choice in the minds of most students.A third obstacle to recruiting women to radiology is the persistent shortage of women to serve as visual role models for students [9,10,12,13,14]. The importance of female role models in shaping the career decisions of women has been established in many medical fields including radiology, surgery, and internal medicine [15,16,17]. The educational theorist Etienne Wenger claims that medical students decide on specialties by drawing upon their medical school experiences to visualize themselves working within a particular field, an exercise he calls "paradigmatic trajectories" or career trajectories [13,18,19,20]. To do this, students need to physically see role models with which they can identify to know that specific careers possible for them [13,20]. The shortage of women in radiology may simply make it too difficult for female medical students to see themselves in the profession.

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“…Desde ahí, el número ha sido progresivo, principalmente en las dos décadas recientes, aun cuando en cualquiera de las cuatro fuentes consultadas el porcentaje de mujeres en práctica quirúrgica es inferior al 10%. Internacionalmente muchas investigaciones se han dirigido a estudiar esta baja representación de la mujer en el campo quirúrgico, llegando a hablarse de la triple barrera: son menos las mujeres que al ingresar a los estudios de medicina se interesan por la cirugía (6% de mujeres versus 20% de hombres en un estudio y 18% y 50% en otro, respectivamente); es mayor la mayor proporción de mujeres que durante los estudios pierde el interés por esta especialidad (76% mujeres versus 50% de los hombres) y, contrariamente, sólo un 6% de las mujeres que estudian medicina desarrollan interés por cirugía mientras cursan su pregrado, a diferencia de un 20% de los estudiantes de sexo masculino 2,5 . Por lo anterior, nos parece de interés conocer cuáles son aquellos factores que favorecen o desfavorecen la elección de la cirugía como especialidad.…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

“…Si bien la elección de la especialidad por parte de un egresado de medicina está determinada por múltiples variables, entre los que se cuenta su personalidad, la relación con residentes en formación durante sus últimos años de medicina y la infl uencia de modelos a lo largo de sus estudios 7,12 , en Estados Unidos de Norteamérica pudiera infl uir positivamente en la elección, especialmente para mujeres, la reducción de las horas de trabajo semanal exigibles para un residente de cirugía 6 , que de ser de 100 horas o más, se rebajó a un máximo de 80 horas, según lo estipulado por el Consejo de Acreditación para Graduados de Educación Médica (Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education, ACGME) desde el año 2003; en la legislación de la Unión Europea el tope de trabajo semanal para un residente es de 58 horas. La fl exibilización del trabajo es, para algunos, elemento determinante al elegir la especialidad 5,7 , como también se ha enfatizado el rol que cumple un mentor en tal decisión, que con su ejemplo es capaz de infl uir en la percepción que tienen los estudiantes sobre tal especialidad 13 . Esta mayor incorporación de la mujer se da, incluso considerando que una mujer cirujano puede aspirar a un ingreso económico inferior que al de un cirujano hombre 1,2,14 .…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

La incorporación de la mujer en la cirugía chilena

et al. 2012

Rev Chil Cir

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The incorporation of women in Chilean surgeryIt has been observed an increasing number of women studying medicine. However, the incorporation of women to surgery remains low. In Chile we do not have information on this topic. Our goal was to collect information to provide the fi gures and trends in this regard. Information was obtained from the Society of Surgeons of Chile (SCCH), the Chilean Chapter of the American College of Surgeons (CCh CAC), the Autonomous National Commission of Medical Specialties (CONACEM) and the Superintendent of Health of Chile (SS), until June 2011. The SCCH has 854 partners and 64 were women (7.5%). The Chilean Chapter of the CCh CAC has 162 members and 4 women (2.5%). At CONACEM, 1.070 persons have been certifi ed as surgeons, 80 are women (7.5%). In the register of SS there are 1.177 surgeons, 8.4% female. In 1959 the fi rst women joined SCCH. Since then, the number has been progressive, growing mainly in the last two decades to reach the 7.5% now. Nevertheless, in all consulted sources, the percentage of women in surgical practice, still less than 10%. It seems that woman is trying to increase participation in the surgical fi eld. However, the "surgeon's lifestyle" collides with compatibility between work and family life. We believe there is room for qualitative research in this fi eld, to better understand motivations and challenges of women in order to access the surgical world nowadays.

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Who wants to be a surgeon? A study of 300 first year medical students

Cited by 46 publications

References 17 publications

How gender or culture affects first year Dutch and Swedish students' preferences for specialties and work-life issues

How gender or culture affects first year Dutch and Swedish students' preferences for specialties and work-life issues

The Illusion of Choice: Gender Segregation and the Challenge of Recruiting Women to Radiology

La incorporación de la mujer en la cirugía chilena

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