WOMEN IN THE MEDICAL

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Women in the Medical Field: A Literature Review

Carolina Lucero
RWS 1302
University of Texas at El Paso
10/31/2016

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Abstract
The number of women in the medical field has risen in the past couple of decades.
Since the mid nineteenth century when the first female was accepted into medical school
to the 21st century, women have come a long way. That doesnt mean that women no
longer face gender stereotypes and discrimination in the workplace. This literature
review will be analyzing more in depth the effects of gender bias on womens job choice,
job performance, and wages. This information was gathered by conducting a survey and
by analyzing several online articles that claim gender stereotypes often affect a womens
performance in their job and influences their decision on which specialty to choose in the
medical field. It was discovered that unlike men, women are often pushed away from
surgical specialties and into lower paying jobs. It was also discovered that women get
paid less not because of the specialty they choose but because of their gender, thus
creating a big wage gap between men and women

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Women in the Medical Field: A Literature Review

Nursing is one of the oldest professions and women being the caretakers of their
families, were the ones to take up the roles (Weatherford, 2010). However, men
dominated the world of physicians and medical schools around the globe. It wasnt until
one hundred and sixty years ago in 1847 that the first American woman, Elizabeth
Blackwell, was accepted into medical school. Despite protests from the medical
community, more women followed Blackwells steps and by 1850 the Womens Medical
College of Pennsylvania opened. Nineteen women medical collages and nine women
hospitals had been established by the end of the nineteenth century (Chin, 2016).
However, the early 20th century saw a decline in women in the medical movement as a
result of women educational reforms, the closing of a couple of women medical collages,
and the rise of the advocacy for more women in allied health care fields like nursing,
public health and social work. It wasnt until the passage of the Higher Education Act
that prevented federal educational institutions from discriminating based on gender that
the rise in women in medicine started to take a right turn.
From only representing only 5% of physicians at the end of the 19th century, women
now make about 22.8 % of U.S physicians. Even though that represents a big
advancement for women, according to data collected from several sources, one of those
sources being Dr. Eliza Lo Chin, women encounter discrimination in their medical
workplace and are still dealing with the glass ceiling phenomenon. For that reason the
debate over whether women are close to reaching gender quality continues and deserves
consideration through the review of 3 research questions and 1 survey question:

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1. What are some gender stereotypes between men and women in the medical
field and how does that affect their performance on the job?
2. What specialties are women pushed more towards and away from in the
medical field?
3. Does a wage gap still exist between men and women in the medical field?
4. Would you rather have a female or male doctor?
What are some gender stereotypes between men and women in the medical field and how
does that affect their performance on the job?
According to recent studies conducted by Medscape, women represent one third of the
physician population in the U.S. The statistics show progress demonstrating that in 1970 7.6%
of physicians were female, in 1970 the number went up to 11.6% , and in 1990 the number went
down to 6.9% . Today women make up for about 22.8% of physicians in the U.S ( Freedman
2010). While the number of female physicians has been rising for the past decades, many
surveys of gender discrimination in the medical workplace have shown that female physicians
are significantly more likely to experience at least one form of discrimination than male
physicians. About 53.3% of females compared to 33.6% males have been treated with disrespect
by patients, peers, nursing staff, administrators/supervisors, or have not been considered or
given the opportunity for a promotion or senior management ( Freedman, 2010). Female
physicians compared to male physicians, are five times more likely to go through career
advancement obstacles and three times more likely to experience disrespectful/ punitive
actions (Freedman, 2010).
Many of the discriminating acts have been linked to the perception that society has about
what women and men represent in society. In society, women are not as strong as men, they are
nurses and not doctors, they are nurturers, caring and are supposed to take care of children, they

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are supposed to be quiet, submissive and do as they are told, and women do not have technical
skills and arent good with hands on jobs, like the job of a surgeon (Brewer, 2016). Men on the
other hand are expected by society to be strong, doctors not nurses, work in science, medical, and
technical fields, and they are always in charge (Brewer, 2016). According to surveys conducted
by Penn State, many patients have mistaken male nurses for physicians and female doctors for
nurses, and females are often approached to perform the duties of a nurse. Those stereotypes
have an impact from an early stage in female medical students for during clinical rotations
female students find themselves assisting nursing or supporting staff, nurturing the patients, and
are more insecure about their abilities and extremely apologetic about any mistakes for which
they are not wholly responsible for ( Freedman, 2010).
While it is more common for female medical students to form relationships with female
nursing and support staff, male students form relationships with other male physicians
(Freedman, 2010). Women are also more prone to having a sexual harassment incidents at work
than men. In a 2000 survey, about 48% of female students and physicians experienced sexist
comments or behavior, compared to only 1% of male physicians. (Freedman, 2010). That has
have an impact in the self-esteem and performance of female physicians, some even decides to
leave their dream of becoming a physician and pursue a more feminine career ( Freedman,
2010). It was reported that women accounted for 47.1% of medical school students, yet only
22.8% are active physicians (Freedman, 2010).
More women are entering the medical field but they are less likely than man to be offered
leadership positions. For example, women are promoted much slower than male colleagues to a
teaching position. In universities across the U.S only about 2% of all department chairs are

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women (Feminist Majority Foundation, 2014). The diagram below shows the comparison of
women and male medical school benchmarking in 2004-2005 ( Henkel, 2006).

Source: Gretchen, Henkel. (2006). The Gender Factor. Retrieved from http://www.thehospitalist.org/article/the-gender-factor/3/
If women arent pushed to have leadership positions in the medical field, then what are women
being pushed towards? That leads to the second research question.
What specialties are women pushed more towards and away from in the medical field?
Many factors influence what specialty medical students and residents choose, but recent data
shows that gender stereotypes influence the decision of a male and female medical student.
About 70% of all women physicians specialize in the four lowest- paid specialties which include
general family practice, psychiatry, pediatrics and internal medicine (Feminist Foundation,
2014). The following diagram is a visual representation taken from statistics collected by the

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American Medical Association (AMA) about the four top specialties that female physicians
dominate.

Top Four Women Medical Specialties

21%
31%

21%

27%
Family Medine

Psychiatry

Pediatrics

Gynecology

Source: Vassar Lyndra. (2015). How medical specialties vary by gender. Retrieved from
https://wire.ama-assn.org/education/how-medical-specialties-vary-gender
Compared to women, men opt to specialize in surgery (about 59%), emergency medicine (62%),
anesthesiology (63%), radiology (73%), and internal medicine (54%). Women are
underrepresented in neurosurgery, orthopedics, urology, radiology and general surgery (Vassar
2015).
Surgery is one of the most dominated professions by men and least advocated for women,
which current data shows that only about 14% of women will choose to go into surgical
specialties (Martin, 2015). The I Look Like A Surgeon campaign made by surgery resident
Heather Logghe, came about in hopes of getting rid of the stereotype that surgery is a specialty
meant for men (Grovel, 2015). A survey conducted by the University of Nottingham Medical

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School asked both male and female residents about their interest in surgery. About 59% of males
and 68% of female participants believed that surgery was not a career that was welcoming to
women (Word Press, 2013). Upon doing further research, it was found that the fact that
surgery was male dominated and the possibility of not being able to maintain a family life and
the limited training opportunities is what kept women from pursuing a career in the surgical field
(Word Press, 2013). Compared to men, women face more years of surgical training, intense
physical component, and are on call two or three night per week resulting in 60-80 hour work
weeks (Martin, 2015). It was also revealed by a couple of female surgeons interviewed Nicole
Martin from Stanford University, that women expressed a deep sense of responsibility to not let
their colleagues down and felt that they could not show any weaknesses compared to male
surgeons. That is why women are more likely to work all the way through a pregnancy and
return as little of two to six weeks after giving birth (Martin, 2015). That alone is enough to
discourage a woman resident from specializing in surgery.
With that in mind, if it was reported that women specialize in the four lowest paying
specialties, does that mean that it is the same for men if they were to specialize in the same low
paying specialties? Would men make the same amount of money as women if they specialize in
family practice and pediatrics? And would women make the same amount of money as male
surgeons? That leads to the next research question.
Does a wage gap still exist between men and women in the medical field?
According to an article in the New York Times written by Claire Miller, many people
attribute the male and female wage gap to the fact that women choose the lowest paid jobs
(Miller, 2014). Claire Miller interviewed Harvard University labor economist, Claudia Goldin,
who claimed that There is a belief, which is just not true, that women are just in bad

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occupations and if we just put them in better occupations, we would solve the gender gap
problem (Miller, 2014). In fact, the 2011 MGMA Physician Compensation and Production
Survey reports that mean annual income for women working in family practice, internal
medicine and pediatrics is lower than their male counterparts (Ryan, 2012). Even after adjusting
some factors that can determine compensation, such age, years of experience, specialty, rank, and
measures of research productivity and clinical revenue which includes how many patients a
doctor sees, the average pay gap was of $19,878 (Bricker, 2016). Below is a graph representing
an estimate of the average annual income of both men in women in primary care and specialties
from the years 2012 to 2016.

Source: Radovanovic Dragan, Brodwin Erin . (2016). Heres how much doctors actually make.
Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-money-do-doctors-make-2016-4
For example, when researched more into detail, it is observed that women in family practice
make $4,448 less than men, in internal medicine they make $29,211 less, and in pediatrics they

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make $23,402 less than men. Even in occupations that women dominate, like nursing, there is a
noticeable wage gap of about $10,000 between men and women, with the average 2013 salary
for male nurses being $70,000 versus $60,000 for women (Tanner,2015).
Would you rather have a female or male doctor?
With all the information gathered about gender stereotypes in the hospital, I decided to ask a
couple of people who they would trust more as being their doctor: a male or a female. For this
survey, five student raging from the ages 18- 20 were asked if they would prefer a male or
female doctor and were asked to have a discussion explaining why they would rather have one
over the other. The same question was asked to five older adults from ages 60 and up. All five
students answered that it didnt matter if they had a male or female doctors. When asked why,
most of the students response was that gender didnt depict how well a doctor could do their job.
As long as the doctor was well educated and prepared, gender didnt matter to them. Now, when
the same question was asked to an older age group, the response was a little different. One 79
year old women answered she would rather have a female doctor because she would feel more
comfortable with a person of the same gender checking her. However, when asked if she would
rather have a female surgeon instead of a male, the women said that in that case she would trust
the male surgeon more than the female. The remaining four, which were two women, ages 67
and 71, and two men, ages 71 and 75, answered that they would rather have a male doctor to
check them and perform surgery on them. When asked why, the most common response was that
they felt a male doctor was better prepared and knew what he was talking about more than
women. The two older males went as far by saying that women were better off as nurses. One
conclusion that could have been taken from this survey is that younger people are more opened
minded and dont pay much attention to gender stereotypes, unlike some older adults that still

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have the mindset that men are more qualified women to do certain jobs. Perhaps, as generations
go by, the glass ceiling will disappear and there will be gender equality in the medical
workplace.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this literary review has analyzed vast amounts of data and has answered many
questions concerning gender inequality in the medical field. Though the number in women
physicians has increased significantly, a series amount of stereotypes still surround female
doctors making them more prone to discrimination and sexual harassment, than men. As a result
of stereotypes, women arent given many opportunities to take leadership roles and are pushed to
pursue lower paying jobs like family practice, internal medicine and pediatrics, while males
pursue more specialties in the surgical field. However, women make less money than men not
because of the specialty that they choose, but because of the big wage gap that still exists
between men and women in the medical field, despite there being claims that it doesnt exist.
The younger generations dont seem to mind male and female physician stereotypes as much as
older people do. Perhaps, this could be a good sign for the hope of full gender equality in the
future.

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References
Vassar L. ( 2015). How medical specialties vary by gender. Retrieved by
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/ama-wire/post/medical-specialties-vary-gender

Grover A. ( 2015). The Good and Bas Statistics on Women in Medicine.

Retrieved by
http://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2015/10/29/the-good-and-bad-statistics-on-womenin-medicine/
Govender V., Kekana-Penn L (2007). Gender biases and discrimination: a review of health care
interpersonal interactions. Retrieved by

www.who.int/social_determinants/resources/gender_biases_and_discrimination_wgkn_2007.pdf
Feminist Majority Foundation. (2014). Empowering Women in Medicine. Retrieved by
http://www.feminist.org/research/medicine/ewm_toc.html
Brodwin E., Radonanovic D. (2016). Heres how much money doctors actually make. Retrieved
by http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-money-do-doctors-make-2016-4

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Bricker N. (2016). The Gender Pay Gap for Doctors is Atrocious. Retrieved by
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/10/approval_voting_is_better_tha
n_plurality_voting_america.html
Chin E. ( 2016). Looking Back Over the History of Women in Medicine. Retrieved by
http://www.mommd.com/lookingback.shtml
Freedman J. (2010). Women in Medicine: Are we There yet?. Retrieved by
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/732197_4