The relationship between gender and career choice in medicine – an overview

Medicine has traditionally been regarded as a career predominated by males however the trends in the UK show that this is not accurate. From 2020, it is expected that the majority of clinicians will be female. Existing trends, however, show that certain medical and surgical specialities are male or female dominated, in some specialities to the extent that over 80% of clinicians are of the same gender. Some suggested reasons for this imbalance are personality traits, discrimination and the availability of role models although it is clear that this issue is multifactorial. Until the causes for this gender imbalance can be understood, efforts to address the situation are likely to be limited.