45% of UK doctors but only 12% of surgeons are women

[Dozer]

Read this (in a Times article about an Australian cardiologist) and was surprised. It’s terrible!

Not seen stats but imagine the pay gap for doctors, and in health occupations as a whole, is massive.

This is a working hours issue - and note that surgeons aren't necessarily going to end up wealthier than, say, dermatologists, where there are a majority of women, driven hugely by the fact that there are good part time options and you are less likely to have a midnight dermatology crisis. And dermatologists can earn much better than many surgeons!

All medical training can be hard for women - or men - planning or needing to take a parental leave break in the middle, and/or go part time, but surgery is especially hard. Lots of on call, very long hours in the hospital during training, you have your own patient roster so harder to go on leave or be flexible - and there's a certain amount of physical practice needed to get good at procedures, that makes part time hard. I know I would always choose the surgeon doing my procedure day in an over someone 3 days a week.
There's also some old boys club issues in some areas (orthopaedics especially!), but this is one that's very driven by practical considerations. Fixing it would mean women happy to take a secondary parent role to their kids (I've done this for a bit, but was really hard), men or partners happy to be primary carers and better childcare to work around shifts and on call.

Here’s an article on the gender paygap for full time doctors in 2016 - a third!

careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/The_gender_pay_gap%3A_female_doctors_still_earn_a_third_less_than_male_doctors

Easily solved.

A % of male surgeons can just identify as women and hey presto, you've got gender parity.

Where's the problem?

I agree on self ID, stats collection etc, but posted to discuss another concern.

I have a female surgeon for an ongoing issue. She's a brilliant surgeon but in order to do her job her husband has needed to stay at home to do childcare. He had a brilliant career in his own right but unusually, was happy to retire.

Some of the stories I've heard though! At a conference a male group of her competitors were whispering together to plot spreading rumours about her to discredit her (she gets a lot of private work above other surgeons as she's one of the best in her field). It was only picked up because they were discissing her in a different language and her husband spoke that language. There were attempts at another conference to photograph her, I believe to spread rumours she was anorexic and not a competent surgeon. She's slim but naturally so.

I think I've only heard some of the rubbish her male competitors have put her through. These are educated, supposedly ethical doctors

I imagine surgery to have quite an ‘old boys club’ culture.

Most of the women I know in medicine are GPs. One is an emergency doc and another a pathologist but no surgeons.

Does this mean doctors and surgeons that are British or Work in the UK? Very very loose generalisation and don’t take it the wrong way but when I had my son both doctors and the surgeon were polish women. The lady that stitched me up was polish too so I wonder if that was unusual or if this statement just means British born?

I had thyroid surgery on Friday and my surgeon was a women, as was the anesthetist. She is in her 50ties I guess, anesthetist about 20 years younger than her, there were lots of women working in and around the operating theater in all kind of roles, all younger than my surgeon, I think the ratio may well shift in the coming years.

I wonder if more Mother's would be happy to let their DPs take the lead parenting role if their DPs were as good as them at it or better. I think the answer to some of this is to bring up boys to want to be, and learn to be excellent Fathers.

The article didn’t state but I assume it’s doctors registered and working in the UK, regardless of nationality.

I don’t think we should assume the “ratio will shift”. That argument is often used to justify inaction on equality matters.

The ratio is shifting as a much larger proportion of junior surgical trainees are now female. Obviously it will take a long time for them to make consultant though, and maybe even longer then male colleagues as many will take time out etc and I don’t know what’s proportion leave surgical training compared to men (one female doctor in my GP training cohort has switched from surgical training).
There remains a massive culture of staying late, coming in on days off (all unpaid) to get enough procedures in, I agree with the above poster that without another parent taking the lead or a nanny it’s a difficult career to fit in with kids.

I agree with above posters- rightly or wrongly the hours you are willing to commit to- both paid an unpaid is what gets the job. If you are able to be the parent with the crazy working hours, then you have a shot with surgical training. There is an expectation of overtime due to surgery running over, being on call, and I’d you can’t do that in your family unit, then you’re not going to get the role. I know many female surgeons- they have nannies or husbands in more fluid hour jobs as there is no way to do the role otherwise. I believe the male dominance is more due to family and society than the medical culture, the expectation for women and from women to be more involved in child rearing. A year off from surgical training for maternity leave would put you behind your colleagues greatly, but returning to work within three months would be difficult with the expected workload without a lot of support. The number of women is increasing, but it will be interesting to see if they continue to make inroads into typically male dominated medical fields, or continue to choose the more female dominated ones as they usually have a higher support for reduced and pert time hours, or private practise.