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Female Residents Underrepresented in High-Compensation Specialties

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on Oct 3, 2024.

By Lori Solomon HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 2, 2024 -- Female physicians remain underrepresented among residents entering high-compensation specialties, according to a research letter published online Sept. 30 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Karina Pereira-Lima, Ph.D., from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and colleagues examined national trends in the proportion of female applicants and matriculants to residency programs for high-compensation surgical and nonsurgical pipeline specialties using data from the National Graduate Medical Education Census and Electronic Residency Application Service (2008 to 2022).

The researchers found that of the 490,188 matriculants to pipeline specialties, 25.5 percent entered high-compensation specialties (female, 34.6 percent; surgical, 57.6 percent). There was a significant increase in the proportion of female matriculants to high-compensation specialties from 32.7 percent in 2008 to 40.8 percent in 2022. However, the proportion of matriculants remained lower than the proportion in non-high-compensation specialties (53.0 percent in 2008 to 53.3 percent in 2022). There was a significant decrease in the proportion of female applicants to high-compensation nonsurgical specialties (36.8 percent in 2009 to 34.3 percent in 2022), while the proportion of female applicants to high-compensation surgical specialties increased from 28.1 percent in 2009 to 37.6 percent in 2022.

"Future studies should identify which strategies were successful in attracting women to these specialties and whether they could be implemented by high-compensation nonsurgical specialties," the authors write.

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Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

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Posted October 2024

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