31 Mar NHS gender equality under scrutiny
Female doctors are set to outnumber male doctors as soon as 2017, and recent discussion on this has caused widespread disagreement within The Medical Community, writes Emily Osterloff
“Paediatrics should be a female speciality” says medicine student, Maria Goryaeva
In recent years there has been a significant change in the ratio of female to male doctors working professionally within the UK, with women becoming more present within the field. This change in the trend has caused widespread disagreement from many medical professionals owing to the concern that with the growing presence of female doctors could have an impact on the running of the NHS and patient care, with regards to women relying on the ability to work part-time in order to compensate for family commitments.
J. Meirion Thomas, a Professor of Surgery and Consultant Surgeon at ‘The Royal Marsden’, stated in a recent article published by the Daily Mail Online that this: “shift of the gender balance in medicine is a worrying trend”. He references an investigation undertake by the British Medical Association (BMA) in 2009, concerning the ‘Equality and Diversity in Medical Schools’. This study suggests that by 2017 there will be more fully trained female doctors practicing in the UK than male.
His suggestion is that issue lies in the fact that: “most female doctors end up working part-time” due to family commitments, therefore resulting in the need for more doctors to be trained in order to fill in for those on leave, which he suggests is a drain on NHS monetary resources and does not ultimately benefit the patients.
The growing numbers of women can be acknowledged as being due to women in modern society being far more career-driven than in the past. However, Professor Meirion Thomas’ concerns lie in the: “continuity of care”, and therefore the quality of care, given to patients, when their doctors are temporarily putting their careers aside, and patients second, in order to start a family.
This is not an opinion appreciated by all. Many medical organisations have stepped in and objected to Professor Meirion Thomas’ comments, including the ‘Royal College of Surgeons’ (RCS) and the ‘Medical Women’s Federation’ (MWF).
In his official statement of response to the article, President of the RCS, Norman Williams, remarked that in fact women make up only “66% of the part-time work force”, with 83% of female doctors working “30 hours or more”.
Dr. Fiona Cornish, President of the MWF, in interview said, “Professor Meirion Thomas is unfounded, insulting and very unwelcome”. She believes that “any lack of equal opportunity is a cause for concern”.
Dr. Cornish said, “It is far better for women to be retained in the workforce working less than full time, then loosing them altogether”, suggesting that the result of women being lost from the workforce entirely would have a “much greater impact on the NHS”.
The influx of women into the medical profession, according to Dr. Cornish, relates to women no longer being “willing to feel excluded from highly regarded professions”.
“I think modern society accepts that men and women have equal opportunity to go into medicine based on merit, and no-one would expect positive discrimination for either man or women”. Dr. Cornish believes that in order for changes to be made, it has to be realised that in modern society “women play an equal part in the medical workforce”.
Women have not always been a key feature of the medical profession in the past, serving only as nurses or herbalists until 1874 when The London School of Medicine for Women was founded, allowing medical training for women, and were then increasingly encouraged to do so throughout the First World War.
Maria Goryaeva, a third year medical student at Imperial College London is of the opinion that in undertaking a career in the medical profession, doctors should be treated the should be given the same treatment as they would in an other profession. She stated that: “people in any other speciality are allowed a family and to work suitable hours around that”, then asking: “why should I have to choose either a career or a family?”
Despite concerns about the ability of women to sometimes commit to full time occupation, there appears to be a need for them within Medicine. According to Goryaeva, there are specialties that seem to better suit one gender over the other based on what they entail. “Certain specialties consist mostly of women now” she stated, referring specifically to Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
This was a similar opinion to that of Dr. Cornish, who said: “patients like to have the choice of a male or female doctor, especially in the areas such as gynecology and family planning”.
Goryaeva additionally suggested that: “Paediatrics should be a female speciality”, based on maternal instincts that make women “better with children”. However, she stressed that there are other areas of the medical profession which suit men over women, such as Orthopedics as it is a “physical challenge as a speciality”, which often puts female surgeons at a genetic disadvantage.
Dr. Cornish also stated that in addition to the benefit of patient gender preference choice: “having a mix of men and women in leadership roles provides a more balanced style of leadership for the medical profession”, and specifically the NHS.
Dr. Cornish is of the opinion that there are changes that need to be made within the NHS to allow for those wishing to work less than full time, but admits that: “no-one has yet successfully worked out how to achieve exactly the right number of doctors in the right place at the right time, and at the same time allow the flexibility necessary to allow women to combine family and career”. Although, it does seem that the concept of ‘less than full time work’ is slowly working more fluidly, putting Medicine “way ahead of some other professions, such as Law and Banking”.
Furthermore, Dr. Cornish said: “many younger men are choosing to work less than full time” in order to share childcare and domestic tasks equally with their partners, benefiting the children and the parents, and resulting in men’s and women’s working patterns becoming more similar.
