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Women in Medicine

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Published: August 2008

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Women in U.S. Medicine
EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT
  • In the U.S., women were 48.7% of all first year medical school students in 2005-2006. 1

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WOMEN PHYSICIANS
  • 21.2% of physicians are women.2
  • Women were 69.9% of all medical and health services managers. 3
  • Between 1980 and 2005, the total number of physicians increased by 92.9%2
  • The total number of women physicians has increased 351.2% between 1980 to 2005, from 54,284 to 244,913.2
  • In 2005, there were 10 specialties with more than 5,000 female physicians (listed in descending order):2
    • Internal medicine
    • Pediatrics
    • General/Family Medicine
    • Obstetrics/Gynecology
    • Psychiatry
    • Anesthesiology
    • Pathology
    • Emergency Medicine
    • General Surgery
    • Diagnostic Radiology

WOMEN SURGEONS

  • Women are 14.4% of all general surgeons.2
  • Women are 5.9% of all specialty surgeons.2, 4
WOMEN IN ACADEMIC MEDICINE
  • In U.S. medical schools, women are 31.5% of the 113,928 medical faculty members. Women make up 15.0% of full professors, 27.3% of associate professors, 37.7% of assistant professors, and 49.1% of instructors/other faculty rank.5
  • In 2004, women were 36% of promotions to associate professor positions, and 25% of promotions to full professor.5
  • In 2004-2005, women represented 11% of department chairs. Only 10% of U.S. medical school deans were women.5
  • Nancy Edwards was named the Dean of Duke's Medical School in 2007, making her the first woman to lead any of the top 10 medical schools in the US.6
WOMEN OF COLOR IN MEDICINE
  • Of female physicians whose race/ethnicity is known, 33.3% are women of color physicians.2
  • Women of color are 8.0% of all physicians whose race/ethnicity is known. 2
Women in Canadian Medicine
  • In Canada, women are 32.5% of all physicians and 18.7% of all surgical specialists. In addition, women are only 3% of all medical scientists.7
  • In 2007, women received 58.5% of all MD degrees earned. These numbers have been mostly rising since 1940, when women were just 4.1% of all MD degree recipients. 1997 was the first year more women received MD degrees than men, with women being 50.3% of all MD recipients.8
Women in Medicine Worldwide
  • Although women are currently more than half of all medical students in New Zealand, women comprised only 34.5% of the doctors.9
  • Women are 39.4% of doctors in the UK.10
  • 40% of all physicians in Norway are women.11
WOMEN NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS

Since 1901, only seven women have won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine:

  • Gerty Radnitz Cori (1947) 12
  • Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (1977) 12
  • Barbara McClintock (1983) 12
  • Rita Levi-Montalcini (1986) 12
  • Gertrude Elion (1988) 12
  • Christiane Nusslein-Volhard (1995) 12
  • Linda B. Buck (2004) 12
Sources

1 Barbara Barzansky, Sylvia I. Etzel, "Medical Schools in the United States, 2005-2006," JAMA, vol. 296, no. 9 (September 6, 2006): p. 1147-1163.

2 Derek R. Smart, Physician Characteristics and Distribution in the US, 2007 ed. (United States: American Medical Association, 2007).

3 Current Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Table 11: Employed persons by Detailed Occupation, Sex, Race, and Hispanic or Latino Ethnicity," Annual Averages 2007 (2008).

4 Specialty surgeons, according to Physician Characters and Distribution in the US include colon/rectal surgery, neurological surgery, orthopedic surgery, plastic surgery, thoracic surgery, transplant surgery, and urological surgery.

5 AAMC, "Women in U.S. Academic Medicine: Statistics and Medical School Benchmarking 2004-2005" (2005).

6 Rebecca Wu, "Harvard Doctor Named Med Dean," The Chronicle of Higher Education (August 28, 2007).

7 Canada Medical Association, "Number and percent distribution of physicians by specialty and sex, Canada 2007" (2007).

8    Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada, Canadian Medical Education Statistics, vol. 29 (2007). http://www.afmc.ca/pdf/CanadianMedicalEducationStatistics2007.pdf  

9 The Ministry of Health, "Doctors in New Zealand" (2005).

10 National Statistics, "Labour Force Survey: Employment Status by Occupation and Sex," April-June 2006 (2006).

11 Anders Taraldset, Norwegian Medical Asscocation, "Statistics and Research on physicians in Norway in English" (September 10, 2007).

12 Nobel Prize Internet Archive, "Female Nobel Prize Winners" (2007).

UPDATED August 11, 2008

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