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While both men and women are enrolling in medical school at similar rates, in 2015 the United States reported having 34% active female physicians and 66% active male physicians[1][2]. Owing to the gender gap in the medical field, it is important to reveal the possible barriers female doctors face, which could possibly attribute to their lower rates of practice in the United States. According to reputable sources, female clinicians face sexual assault, wage disparities, gender norms, sexism, and medical school sabotage.

Sexual Assault

According to a Medscape survey, more than 10% of female physicians have experienced workplace sexual assault compared to just 4% of men[3]. Among women who have experienced sexual assault and harassment, 50% stated that this experience negatively impacted their career advancement[4]. Sexual harassment is common amongst younger clinicians when they come in contact with male clinicians in power who have more seniority over them.[5] Due to their sense of power over their coworkers and employees, they feel empowered to commit acts of sexual assault.[5] In many cases, female survivors of sexual assault fail to come forward and report these crimes because they are labeled "troublemakers" and have a hard time finding new employment.[6] As a result of this, and Human Relations typically functioning to protect the company/hospital rather than the survivor, female physician survivors of sexual assault are unlikely to report their experiences, resulting in future female physicians also remaining silent if abused, thus continue the cyclical cycle of misconduct within the medical system[7].


Wage Gap

Besides experiencing greater rates of sexual assault in the workplace, female surgeons are also subject to the wage gap.[8] Females were reported to have lower salaries than male surgeons.[8] In a study conducted in 1990, male clinicians were making a mean earnings of $155,400, while female clinicians were making a mean earnings of $109,900; about $45,500 less than their male counterparts.[8] As of 2016, female physicians have statistically been found to make about $18,677 less than male physicians.[9] Pay disparities for female physicians has also been blamed on women not wanting to commit to leadership roles which pay higher salaries.[9] Besides gender biases, it is also believed that female physicians are paid less because they are more likely to bill their patients less (as they fear their patient will be unable to pay their bill) and are less likely to be aggressive when negotiating their salary and contract[10][11].

Traditional Gender Norms

Traditional gender norms are another barrier female physicians face in the medical field. According to research, having children is a career stopper for female physicians[12]. In fact, it is reported that approximately 30% of female physicians have faced discrimination for either being pregnant or needing to breastfeed/pump[13]. Besides this, female physicians are seven times more likely to not work part time when compared men as their maternity leaves are on average four weeks shorter than what the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends[14]. It was found that the percentage of female clinicians working part-time in either a hospital setting or a general physician's office after having a child is much higher than the percentage of these women working full-time after having a child (92.7%, 96.3% 59.2%, 76.5% respectively).[15]Along with this, female physicians are often paid less because traditional gender norms put child rearing responsibilities on the mother[14].


Patient Sexism

Furthermore, female physician narratives have described instances of sexism.[16] Female physicians are often mistaken for nurses by patients.[6] Patients have also been reported to have less trust in their physician if they are female and instead ask for a second opinion from a male physician.[6] Women physicians, on the other hand, have also been found to partake in sexist actions. Female clinicians often treat women patients differently than they do men.[17] Women physicians were found to admit less female patients to intensive care units because they were proactive in treating them in the emergency room, rendering their admittance to more intense care units unnecessary.[17]

To raise awareness of the importance of female physicians, Physician Moms Group and Medelita founded February 3 as National Women Physicians Day in 2016.[18] From reading and literature these are the barriers female physicans face within the work force:

Medical School Sabotage

Finally,



  1. ^ "The Physician Gender Bias—What Every Female Doctor Has Faced | SDN". Student Doctor Network. 2018-04-03. Retrieved 2020-06-28.
  2. ^ "Active Physicians by Sex and Specialty, 2015". AAMC. Retrieved 2020-06-28.
  3. ^ "More than 10% of female physicians experienced workplace sexual harassment". Healthcare Dive. Retrieved 2020-06-28.
  4. ^ "The Physician Gender Bias—What Every Female Doctor Has Faced | SDN". Student Doctor Network. 2018-04-03. Retrieved 2020-06-28.
  5. ^ a b "30% of Female Doctors Have Been Sexually Harassed". Time. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  6. ^ a b c Bhatt, Karishma (2015-12-14). "What Sexism in Medicine Looks Like". in-Training.
  7. ^ Jagsi, Reshma (2018-01-18). "Sexual Harassment in Medicine — #MeToo". New England Journal of Medicine. 378 (3): 209–211. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1715962. ISSN 0028-4793. PMID 29236567.
  8. ^ a b c Baker, Laurence C. (1996-04-11). "Differences in Earnings between Male and Female Physicians". New England Journal of Medicine. 334 (15): 960–964. doi:10.1056/NEJM199604113341506. ISSN 0028-4793. PMID 8596598.
  9. ^ a b Desai, Tejas; Ali, Sadeem; Fang, Xiangming; Thompson, Wanda; Jawa, Pankaj; Vachharajani, Tushar (2016-06-27). "Equal work for unequal pay: the gender reimbursement gap for healthcare providers in the United States". Postgraduate Medical Journal. 92 (1092): postgradmedj–2016–134094. doi:10.1136/postgradmedj-2016-134094. ISSN 0032-5473. PMID 27528703.
  10. ^ HealthLeaders. "5 Reasons Women Doctors Earn Less Than Men". www.healthleadersmedia.com. Retrieved 2020-06-28.
  11. ^ "Why do female physicians earn less than men? Here's what the women had to say". FierceHealthcare. Retrieved 2020-06-28.
  12. ^ Pfleiderer, Bettina; Bortul, Marina; Palmisano, Silvia; Rodde, Sibyll; Hasebrook, Joachim (2018-03). "Improving female physician's careers in academic medicine: Chances and challenges". Best Practice & Research. Clinical Anaesthesiology. 32 (1): 15–23. doi:10.1016/j.bpa.2018.04.006. ISSN 1878-1608. PMID 30049335. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ "Why women leave medicine". AAMC. Retrieved 2020-06-28.
  14. ^ a b "Why women leave medicine". AAMC. Retrieved 2020-06-28.
  15. ^ Reed, V (2001). "Career Obstacles for Women in Medicine: An Overview". Medical Education –Oxford. no.2 (2): 139–47. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2923.2001.00837.x. PMID 11169087. {{cite journal}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
  16. ^ Koven S (May 2017). "Letter to a Young Female Physician". The New England Journal of Medicine. 376 (20): 1907–1909. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1702010. PMID 28514609.
  17. ^ a b "Do Women Physicians Treat Women Patients Differently? | American Council on Science and Health". www.acsh.org. 2018-02-13. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  18. ^ "National Women Physicians Day". National Day Calendar. National Day Calendar. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
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