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MEDICAL STUDENT GENDER AND CHOICE OF RESIDENCY

D Leddin, L Jamieson, D McManus, M Stewart, J Stewart
Division of Gastroenterology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Female medical students are a majority in many medical schools. This may have implications for recruitment to specialties such as GI. We examined the influence of gender on a variety of factors known to drive residency choice.
METHODS: Students entering Dalhousie medical school were given a questionnaire at entry to medical school and at the end of each of the four medical years until graduation. Data were collected on demographics and career choices. Students ranked the importance of 22 factors known to influence residency choice on a 1-7 scale of increasing importance.
RESULTS: All 86 students in the first year class, 46 female and 40 male, completed the initial questionnaire, 85% of males and 83% of females completed the entire study. The median age of the males was 29 and females 27 (p=0.02). At graduation 15% of males, 4% of the females had children. Results are shown as difference in ranking of importance of the variables between female and male and the p value for the difference.
Women felt that gender played a greater role as a determinant of career choice (Difference 1.2; p=0.0001). Women ranked the availability of maternity and paternity leave in residency (Difference 2.0; p=0.0001) and in career (Difference 2.0; p=0.0001), and the ability to work part-time (Difference 1.9; p=0.0001) higher than male students. Males ranked the ability to perform technical procedures higher than females (Difference 0.8; p=0.0007). Males and females did not differ in the ranking of the importance of age, place of origin, marital status, years in university, debt load, years of residency required, earning potential, market for skill set post residency, ability to work in a group practice, amount of call, ability to find work for their partner, ability to spend time with patients, job satisfaction, ability to live where one wished, ability to see the results of ones work, ability to teach or perform research.
CONCLUSION: Female medical students rank higher those factors, which will allow them to both pursue a career and raise a family. They are less interested in technical procedures than their male counterparts. If GI training programs wish to maximise recruitment from the pool of female students the specialty will need to adapt to this reality.

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