In the 1980s, women made up about 30% of medical school students, but now they make up 54%.
“There’s a phrase called the ‘feminization of medicine’ in that we are seeing more women coming into it,” Diana Lautenberger, AAMC director of gender equity initiatives, told Medscape. “The result is almost this return of viewing medicine as this profession of healing and caring. This idea that physicians are not just in surgery in the operating room performing operations on patients, but that medicine really is about holistic care.”
Here are eight things to know:
1. In the 2024-2025 academic year, women made up 57% of applicants, 55% of matriculants and 5% of total enrollment, according Jan. 9 data from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
2. The pandemic also spurred more women into the field. In 2021, about 6,000 more women applied to medical school, compared to an increase of 2,000 among men.
3. Female physicians tend to choose pediatrics, obstetrics-gynecology and dermatology as specialties.
4. There are a few reasons behind the shift in women in medicine. First, an increasing number of women are getting bachelor’s degrees. Forty-seven percent of women ages 25-34 have a bachelor’s compared to 37% of men, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center analysis. Women also have access to increased social support and more female physician role models, and there has been a decrease of medical school bias.
“It’s not that women are only now interested in higher education, medicine, science, STEM fields,” Ms. Lautenberger said. “Women have always been interested in these fields. They have just not been socially accepted or allowed to go into them in such higher numbers.”
5. Between 2004 and 2022, the number of women in the active physician workforce jumped 97%, compared to an increase of 13% among men.
6. Patients see better outcomes and lower readmission rates when they see a female physician, as well as a lower chance of dying within 30 days compared to male clinicians, a 2024 study found.
7. Despite high numbers of women training to be physicians, women still represent only 38% of active physicians in the nation in 2022. Female physicians also continue to face inequities in salary and leadership opportunities.
8. Women are gaining more leadership positions in academic medicine. The number of women who serve as faculty has risen from 38% to 45%, and women now represent 27% of medical school deans, 34% of division chiefs, 45% of senior associate deans and 25% of department chairs.
