Medicine Is No Longer a Man's Profession

The influx of women into medicine during the past two decades has rescued the profession from a serious threat to its quality. Given what women have done for medicine, the time is overdue for the changes medicine must make to accommodate its new demography.Let's look at the facts.1 In 1967–1968, when women made up only 10 percent of the applicant pool and the size of the entering class was 9702, the ratio of applicants to first-year places was 1.9. This ratio should be at least 1.5, many think, to ensure the selection of well-qualified medical students. Had there been . . .