Over the last 20 years, the number of women entering medical school has steadily increased. Given this trend, we would expect to see more women joining anesthesiology – a specialty traditionally dominated by men. It would also make sense to assume that the number of leadership roles filled my women would also grow. However, that has not proven to be the case.
“The reality is that we have seen the attrition of women in medicine. On average, a woman physician leaves medicine seven years after completing her training,” noted Elizabeth Malinzak, MD, FASA, Assistant Professor at Duke University and President of Women in Anesthesiology. The anesthesiology workforce is currently about 25% women, and anesthesiology residency programs are about 33% women – numbers that are unchanged since 2006. Meanwhile, the percentage of women going into surgical residencies has increased in the same time period, and we now see more women pursuing...
