More Women Teach Medicine

The number of women faculty members at the nation’s medical schools has grown 73% in a decade, but women doctors still rarely make it to the top ranks of academia, a study shows.

The author of the report recommended that medical schools adopt more flexible rules so that women can both raise families and compete for the most prestigious positions.

Medical schools dramatically increased their female enrollments during the 1970s and in recent years have appointed many women to their teaching staffs. But even though they now make up 19% of medical school faculties, women hold only 7% of the full professorships.

“So many women are still at the assistant professor level. Not as many as one would have predicted from the numbers have progressed to the full professor and department chairman level,” said Janet Bickel, the study’s author.

“On the positive side, there are the sheer numbers of women who are applying to medical school, getting in, graduating and entering competitive residency programs.”

Bickel, director for women’s programs at the Assn. of American Medical Colleges in Washington, reported her findings in the New England Journal of Medicine.