Is Medical Education Wasted On Women?

Over at Denialism blog, PalMD asks us to:

..imagine you are sitting in the doctors' lounge, and a senior physician says that sending women to medical school is a bit of a waste.

[cringe]

He goes on to explain:

In the early 1960's, about 5% of medical American medical students were women. Now about half are. Women are first authors on more medical papers than ever, yet fill only about 11% of department chairs, and fill about 15% of full professorship positions.

Hmmmm... sounds familiar...

Well, this is the real world, and in the real world, half of us are women, and women are the ones who bear children. Also, the prime years for physician training are prime child-bearing years. Get used to it. If we think women have at least as much to offer as physicians as men, we better get used to the fact that they have "lady parts" and that this has real effects. Are we to limit the contributions women are allowed to make because a short period of their lives may or may not involve child-bearing?

i-a072d048249452c0e3403b0fbe9e59f9-1024x768_scrubs.jpgHeck no! But with great contributions like these, me (along with my 'lady parts') are happy to welcome Sb's newest blogger! Go read his full post here...

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It's a difficult question. In one sense, women can and are just as good as doctors as men. On the other hand, more women drop out to raise children.

But overall, I agree with PalMD.

Sounds pretty fishy to me. My GP is a woman. My sister is an MD. So I was under the impression it was pretty well even.