After years of being encouraged to pursue nontraditional careers, females now account for 60% of British medical students. Now the country's medical association is looking for ways to encourage more men to enter the profession.
Last year 3355 women entered medical school in the UK, compared with 2320 men. At the British Medical Association's (BMA) annual meeting in July, delegates were warned that this gender split — 59%–41% — might result in a worsening shortage of MDs because women often leave practice to have children or opt to work part time. In 2001, Canadian medical schools admitted 1137 women and 784 men — the greatest differential ever.
James Coulston of the BMA's Medical Students Committee said female secondary school students often earn better grades than males and perform better during interviews. While the committee was not advocating gender quotas or any kind of discrimination in favour of male applicants, it does want to encourage more males to consider medicine as a career.
A number of physicians opposed such a move, calling it sexist. One specialist said that if men were not entering the field, it was because the terms and conditions were not acceptable. Another participant warned against lowering academic standards and noted that many male doctors also want to work fewer hours.
The final motion from the BMA's Junior Members Forum called on the Department of Health “to ensure that extra numbers of doctors are incorporated into future medical workforce planning in order to take full account of both changes in the gender mix of the medical workforce and the increased maternity and paternity rights of doctors.”
Earlier this year the government announced plans to hire 7500 more specialists and 2000 more general practitioners by the year 2004. Health authorities are also having to take into account a European Union directive, which provides that doctors will not be obliged to work longer than 48 hours per week. The first phase of this plan will apply to junior doctors in training in 2004. — Mary Helen Spooner, West Sussex, UK