Career obstacles for women in medicine: an overview

Purpose This article describes the current position of women in the field o f medicine. Procedures Material was gathered using a MEDLINE search for recent articles on women's career progress in medicine and data from the Association of Am erican Medical Colleges. Main findings Although women now make up a large proportion of the medical student body in industrialized nations, they are still under-represented in a number of disciplines and in the higher echelons of medicine. A number o f possible obstacles to career goals that presumably act synergistically in clude domestic responsibilities, rigidity in career structures and discrimi nation. Conclusions Organizations in the field of medicine can look to the business world for 'best practices' aimed at advancing women to incorporate in thei r own organization. Medical schools and other institutions are taking the i ssue seriously as can be seen from the variety of government and institutio n-based initiatives directed at improving the role of women in medicine.