Women are a growing force in medicine, and the future looks to be firmly in their hands as the Association of American Medical Colleges announced that for the first time ever, more women are enrolled in U.S. medical schools than men.
Medical schools in America have been trending towards more female and less male enrollment for some time.
Back in 2017, women outnumbered men as first-year medical students for the first time, and in 2018, the majority of medical school applicants were women. Now, in 2019, women account for 50.5% of all medical school students in the U.S.
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“The steady gains in the medical school enrollment of women are a very positive trend, and we are delighted to see this progress,” said AAMC’s president and CEO, Dr David J. Skorton.
It’s particularly good news for female patients.
Studies have shown that women have better health care outcomes when they have female doctors. One study in particular showed that women have a significantly higher survival rate from heart attacks when treated by a female doctor.
That’s because women often experience different symptoms than men do.
The differences are subtle but can be profound.
“For example, men are on average larger than women. As a result, a recommended dosage calculated based on an average man’s size may cause an overdose in a smaller woman,” noted University of Waterloo professor Anita Layton in The Globe & Mail .
“Major sex differences also exist in the kidney, which may affect how some drugs are excreted from the body. Because of these sex differences, many diseases affect men and women differently and we respond to treatment differently as well.”
The fact that male doctors might not be able to provide outcomes as positive as female doctors can for female patients isn’t necessarily their fault.
Layton also noted that much of the foundation of medical knowledge gathered in the late 20th century was based on research done solely on men due to an FDA ban on including women of child-bearing age from phase one clinical trials, a ban only lifted in 1993.
But women know women’s bodies better. “Women doctors are more aware of the differences because they’re women and they’ve had to access health care themselves and they can see the deficiencies,” Dr Janice Werbinski told Today .
Even so, Skorton says there’s more work to be done, despite the uptick in female enrollments.
“The modest increases in enrollment among underrepresented groups are simply not enough,” he said. “We cannot accept this as the status quo and must do more to educate and train a more diverse physician workforce to care for a more diverse America.”
h/t: Today , The Globe & Mail
