Medical Careers Fascinate A Growing Number Of Females

Recently there has been a shift in the field of medicine that will alter the shape and face of health care for years to come. In the United States, women are embarking on careers in the medical field in remarkable numbers. In recent past, the division between male and female applicants was nearly equal. Cohorts of medical students were roughly 50-50 between men and women. Medical schools have also noticed an increasing number of female applicants, which can be attributed to two key reasons.

One reason for the sudden increased interest is the changed view in society about what jobs are considered to be "women's work". Legal and engineering careers are also seeing spikes in the number of females among the ranks. As more and more females are applying to medical programs, the programs themselves have been forced to admit more females to their schools. Another factor that has increased interest are the regulations and laws that protect women from discrimination in the job market, opening up new opportunities and options than ever before in history.

There isn't any recent data available on the dropout rate of female medical students. Even though in previous years there were more women who dropped out than men, these women didn't drop out for academic reasons. Female medical students claim the dropout rate to be equal nowadays because of the fact that more women in medical school means the minority is much bigger than it once was, so there is power in numbers. In fact, as more women enter the medical field they find themselves able to exert more force and can drive changes regarding discriminatory behavior.

An example of discriminatory behavior includes the case of a visiting lecturer who decided to break the ice with his mostly male audience by telling a joke. He asked his students which word didn't belong in this series - rug, egg, woman, and sex, and gave the answer as sex, because you can't beat sex. This doesn't seem like much, and it is quite tame compared to some of the other things women heard in their days as students, but it isn't very professional and makes women look like the lesser sex. These jokes could soon be gone for good as well as some of the other overly discriminatory practices commonly found in the medical school setting.

Besides the sexual humor, women in the medical field have to deal with other issues as well. At one large public university, a female student was declined the opportunity to observe a physical exam of a male patient. Why? Because his genitals would be uncovered. It was considered improper or inappropriate for her to see the man's naked genitalia. Yet, in a near medical bay, her husband, who is also a medical student, was permitted to not only observe, but perform a pelvic exam on a female. There are other common problems, such as interviewers that almost always asked women about their family and marriage plans but never asked any of the men these questions. Additional problems include the fact that there are very few women serving on the faculties and admission committees for the medical schools, as well as the typical belief that women are less likely to practice once they graduate, which has prevented many women from entering specialized fields, especially surgical areas.

One woman faculty member who has asked to remain anonymous stated that she knows for a fact that women are often denied admission based on their answer to the marriage or career question. The answer the women gives is irrelevant because some male interviewers will bar the woman's admission regardless. So if the woman says she plans to have someone take care of her children, the interviewer will feel that her real job is to raise her children. Say she says she's going to have children and take care of them herself, the interviewer will then tell her she's not taking medicine seriously.

It has been said that female doctors are much more sensitive than their male counterparts after interviews. But this is chalked up to being another stereotype of women. One second year female medical student has personally witnessed some very unprincipled women and some very caring men, but empathy is still treated as something determined by biology and sociology.

One dean at a prominent medical school commented that women actually bring much to table in the field and that traits that are seen more in women are in fact positive and make them good doctors. Women are often cast as the more open and sensitive gender, beginning when they are young girls, and this can be a positive asset in medicine. Aggressiveness that is possessed by men isn't exactly a bad thing, but it isn't necessarily a good thing either.

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