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Career obstacles for women in medicine: an overview
Author(s) -
Reed Victoria,
BuddebergFischer Barbara
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
medical education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.776
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1365-2923
pISSN - 0308-0110
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2923.2001.00837.x
Subject(s) - variety (cybernetics) , medline , government (linguistics) , alternative medicine , medical education , academic medicine , institution , public relations , professional association , medicine , family medicine , political science , psychology , law , pathology , linguistics , philosophy , artificial intelligence , computer science
Purpose This article describes the current position of women in the field of medicine. Procedures Material was gathered using a MEDLINE search for recent articles on women’s career progress in medicine and data from the Association of American Medical Colleges. Main findings Although women now make up a large proportion of the medical student body in industrialized nations, they are still under‐represented in a number of disciplines and in the higher echelons of medicine. A number of possible obstacles to career goals that presumably act synergistically include domestic responsibilities, rigidity in career structures and discrimination. Conclusions Organizations in the field of medicine can look to the business world for ‘best practices’ aimed at advancing women to incorporate in their own organization. Medical schools and other institutions are taking the issue seriously as can be seen from the variety of government and institution‐based initiatives directed at improving the role of women in medicine.