Increasing Representation, Maintaining Hierarchy: An Assessment of Gender and Medical Specialization

Despite increases in the number of women entering the medical profession during the past four decades, female medical students remain more likely than their male colleagues to enter less prestigious medical specialties. Data from the Association of American Medical College’s 2004 Graduation Questionnaire are used to test both supply- and demand-side explanations for this pattern among a recent cohort of graduating medical students. Controlling for educational debt, type of medical school attended, and race/ethnicity, women are less likely to enter the prestigious fields of surgery and anesthesiology, radiology, and pathology. Although none of this study’s hypotheses account entirely for the effect of gender on medical specialization, results reveal that concerns about work and family balance and experiences of mistreatment in medical school affect all medical students’ career decision making, albeit in somewhat unanticipated ways.