Disparity of Oportunites for Women in the Medical Field

Source: wordpress.com

Women in the medical field are consistently discriminated against in the medical field. From salary to the number of research opportunities available, it is clear that being a women in the medical profession is a disadvantage. A number of studies done by Gunilla Risberg, Eva E Johansson, Goran Westman and Katarina Hamberg are outlined in “Gender in Medicine-- an Issue For Only Women? A Survey of Physician Teachers’ Gender Attitudes” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC305344/) illustrate the effect that gender has on the experience and opportunities of women in the medical field. The investigations in this article have been published by The National Library of Medicine. As what I seek to understand is the importance and effects that gender has on salaries and opportunities in the medical profession, the studies which I proceed to talk about in relationship to my topic have put into numbers and statistics the experiences that women have in the medical profession.

The first study sought to identify “gender differences and gender bias in different fields of academic and clinical medicine”.The conductors of this study sent out questionnaires to physicians involved in educating medical students at a Swedish medical school. The questionnaire had questions aimed at receiving data determining the perceived importance of gender in relationships with others in the medical field. The results were as follows: “A higher proportion of women than men assessed gender as important in professional relationships. Those who assessed very low were all men while both men and women were represented among those with high ratings”(Risberg, Johansson, Westman, Hamberg). According to the data in the article, women were more likely to think that  gender affected their professional relationships. In my opinion I hypothesize that this is because women are more conscious of their own gender because of historical sexism against women. The current prominence of feminist movements also causes women to put more weight on how their gender affects their relationships with others.

The second investigation sought to explore why gender bias has increased in the medical field throughout recent years. It was noted that “female and male physicians differ when comparing time and communication pattern. Female physicians have longer encounters and include more partnership building and emotional support”(Risberg, Johansson, Westman, Hamberg). This may contribute to why female and male physicians may have different types of relationships with patients and may be perceived differently by colleagues as well as patients. Accordingly, also indicated was the fact that female physicians “often work in less prestigious fields than men”(Risberg, Johansson, Westman, Hamberg). Similarly, it was also indicated that female doctors face discrimination regarding research opportunities and are significantly underrepresented in academic medicine. This study is extremely indicative of the fact that women are in fact discriminated against in the medical field.

Future Research: I hope to discover why women have a disparity of opportunities in academic medicine, and if any other types of opportunities for women in the medical profession are limited.