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More American Women Are Opting For A Career In The Medical Field

23rd August, 2010 - Posted by health news - No Comments

There are more women than ever applying for spots in medical schools all across the country, which is changing the way medicine is taught and practiced. In recent years, the number of female applicants that were admitted to medical school were roughly equal to the number of male applicants. Lately though, the number of women applying for medical school has increased dramatically.

The first is the feminist movement, which has shifted society’s lens. At one time the work of women was clearly delineated from the work of men. Today, the lines are pretty blurry. The fields of law and engineering are also seeing more women entering the profession. Medical schools have been pressured by the changing culture to include more women in their incoming classes. Anti-discrimination laws have changed the way things are done everywhere, even if they have been slow about doing things properly. See this doctor jobs australia information for a deeper understanding.

Unfortunately, there isn’t any recent data to go by concerning women dropping out of medical school. We do have some numbers from several years ago that showed that more women tended to drop out of medical school but usually did so for reasons other than academics. It is presumed that fewer women are dropping out today. It’s suggested that the dropout rate at present is likely equal between genders. In the past, women were a striking minority in their medical school classes. Thus, the pressure was enormous. Because of more women going into the medical field, a lot of the old traditions that were discriminatory have been put to rest.

In order to warm his class up one day, an instructor decided to tell his students a very crude joke. “Which of these items doesn’t belong? An egg, sex, woman, or rug” When the class didn’t know, he explained, “It’s sex. Because you can’t beat sex.”Compared to many of the sexist comments that women are subjected to this may seem relatively mild but it won’t change anyone’s ideas of equality for women. However, these jokes and this overall mentality are gradually changing. The sexist jokes are leaving along with sexist pictures.

There are more severe problems that women in the medical field have been battling, such as the female student at a large state university who was not permitted to witness a physical examination of a male patient because his genitals would be visible. But in another room not far away, the woman’s husband was allowed to perform an exam on a woman. There was also the fact of the admissions interview that asked questions about a woman’s career, as well as whether she wanted a family and children. Additional factors that serve to hinder female med students are the lack of females employed by universities on staff since these positions are not keeping up with the rise in female students, the accepted notion that after females get their licenses, they might decide not to go into the medical field after all, and the exclusion of females in certain practices, such as surgery. When you would like to get more information on medical recruitment in australia check out this site.

A woman who is a faculty member at a medical school, who asked to be anonymous, remarked that she disagrees with female applicants being questioned about their plans in terms of having a family and getting married. She admitted that this question often keeps women out of medical school. An example of a male interviewer’s misconstruction of a female’s answers is as follows:If she tells the interviewer she doesn’t want to be a mother or will have someone help her care for them, the interviewer will tell her she should be at home with them. Yet if she does want children, then she is automatically denied for not being committed enough to practicing medicine.

In more and more interview sessions, it became obvious that the perception is that female physicians are not as objective as male physicians. 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 particular med school dean offered the opinion that overall, females have certain characteristics that are very appreciated in the medical field. It is believed that women in general are raised to be more open and sensitive, and this can bring something refreshing to the world of medicine. Males tend to be more aggressive which is a trait that can work against them in medicine. But, she states that neither characteristic is a given in either gender.