SCIENCE&HEALTH: Women advance in field of medicine

When people think of the era when women entered the medical
profession, they tend to look back on the late 19th century when a
group of heroic women beat the odds to make medical education
available to women.

Today, as high-profile leaders, female physicians are an
increasing majority of medical school applicants, serving in the
highest ranks of the medical profession, caring for whole
communities, and responding to new challenges in health care around
the world.

As the number of female health professionals has increased, so
has the number of women applicants, trainees, and faculty in the
field of medicine. For the first time in history, women made up the
majority of medical school applicants (51 percent) in 2003-2004.
This trend continued last year with a 6.7 percent increase in women
applicants from last year’s total.

According to Dr. Robert Jones of the Association of American
Medical Colleges, two factors are accredited with the turnaround in
female medical school applicants. A lagging economy such as the
current one often prompts a larger number of individuals to return
to school. In addition, the number of female college graduates has
increased.

Furthermore the struggle for “balance” winds through
the entire history of women in medicine. For more than a century
and a half, female physicians in America have grappled with the
dilemma of how to be a woman and a physician, how to be different
from, yet equal to, their male colleagues. This is the primary
challenge which has always faced women entering the field of
medicine. This obstacle, however, has not stood in the way of the
potential and drive of women to provide service to society as
physicians. There was once a struggle to define oneself as a hybrid
of physician and mother. Now both definitions are privileges which
are being successfully maintained and embraced.

With the steadily increasing proportion of female medical
graduates, women’s specialties have significantly changed
over time. For example, over the last 10 years, there has been a 33
percent increase in the number of women residents in obstetrics and
gynecology. Additionally, internal medicine, pediatrics, family
medicine, ObGyn and psychiatry are the top five specialties with
the largest number of women physicians. Orthopedic surgery remains
the specialty with the lowest number of female physicians.

Furthermore, over the past five years, women have gained more
representation in leadership roles. Every U.S. medical school now
has at least one female department chair or dean.

As a first-year medical student, I can attest to the victory
which surrounds the rising numbers of qualified and enthusiastic
female medical students. In this year’s entering class of 170
students, 60 percent are female. This is truly a momentous occasion
in history, and one I am fortunate to be a part of.

Ahdout is a first-year student in the

David Geffen School of Medicine.