The relationship between gender and career choice in medicine – an overview

ABSTRACT

Medicine has traditionally been regarded as a career predominated by males however the trends in the UK show that this is not accurate. From 2020, it is expected that the majority of clinicians will be female. Existing trends, however, show that certain medical and surgical specialities are male or female dominated, in some specialities to the extent that over 80% of clinicians are of the same gender. Some suggested reasons for this imbalance are personality traits, discrimination and the availability of role models although it is clear that this issue is multifactorial. Until the causes for this gender imbalance can be understood, efforts to address the situation are likely to be limited.

KEYWORDS:

• Medicine
• Career choice
• Gender

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Notes on contributors

A Campbell

A Campbell is a junior doctor in NHS Tayside having completed an undergraduate honours degree in Anatomy at the University of Glasgow followed by an MBChB at the University of Dundee. During this time, Amy achieved a Masters of Science by Research for a thesis entitled ‘The influence of desired future medical speciality on anatomical knowledge and its retention'.

A Dennis

A Dennis is the Director of the Office of Medical Education at the Billings Clinic in Montana, USA. Having been a Lecturer at the Centre for Medical Education (CME) at the University of Dundee, initially as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow for the Scottish Medical Education Research Consortium (SMERC). Her background is psychology having completed her PhD at the University of St Andrews, where she examined social problem solving, memory, and depression.

T Wilkinson

T Wilkinson is the University of Dundee’s Principal Anatomist and Cox Chair of Anatomy, based in the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification (CAHID). Professor Wilkinson is medically qualified with a PhD in biomechanics and anatomy, and has worked in several universities both in the UK and abroad. Her arrival in Scotland now means that she has worked in each of the home countries, having previously been based in Cardiff, Belfast and London. She has also worked for several years in Germany and parts of Africa. Her main interest lies in learning and teaching, with many years of experience in higher education, mostly involving undergraduate and postgraduate medical, dental and anatomy students, but also several paramedical disciplines. Her research interests include biomechanics, functional anatomy, human variation and medical education and she has won and/or been nominated for several teaching awards. Professor Wilkinson is a member of several societies in the anatomical, medical education and biomechanics fields, and is presently the Honorary Treasurer of the Anatomical Society. She also runs their Anatomy Training Programme for young scientists.

S McAleer

S McAleer has background is in Psychology and has worked in the Centre for Medical Education at the University of Dundee since 1988. He initially was involved in a 3 year project looking at the validity and reliability of the Membership exam of the Royal College of General Practitioners. He followed this by co-writing a book on Medical Audit which was funded by NHS Scotland. In the early 1990s he became part of the teaching team responsible for both the face-to-face and distance learning courses run by the Centre. Since then he has been active in the educational training of health care professions in the UK and worldwide and he is currently the Course Director for the Postgraduate Certificate, Diploma and Masters in Medical Education.