Male-Female Enrollment in Med School More Balanced Again

The number of women enrolling in US medical schools this fall surged 6.2% compared with last year, making it the largest increase since 2006, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) announced earlier this month.

And with that surge, the gender split in medical school enrollees, or matriculants, is balanced at roughly 50/50 again.

However, the percentage of medical school matriculants who were female dipped noticeably during the last 10 years, falling from 48.6% in 2006 to 46.4% in 2012. After 2012, that percentage climbed to its present level of 49.8%.

The same trend shows up in first-time applicants. The percentage who were women fell from 50.4% in 2006 to 47.3% in 2012 and then rose to 50.8% in 2016.

So what happened? AAMC officials can't say for certain, but they have a theory.

Table 1. Percentage of First-Time Medical School Matriculants Who Are Women



To be sure, although female enrollment waned percentage-wise, the absolute number of female matriculants rose steadily from 2006 to 2016, except in 2010. During that same period, the number of male matriculants declined only once, falling by 2% in 2016.

Similarly, the number of first-time female applicants decreased in only two of those years — 2008 and 2009. There also were fewer first-time male applicants in 2008, and again in 2016.



Diana Lautenberger, the AAMC's director of women in science and medicine, told Medscape Medical News that more research is needed to explain why gender balance got out of whack between 2006 and 2016. However, she suspects that the percentage of applicants who were female may have declined for several years because more and more women with undergraduate degrees in the life sciences were pursuing careers other than medicine.


"There are health professions such as physical therapy and dentistry," Lautenberger said. "Women can also choose to go into biomedical PhD programs."

Geoffrey Young, PhD, the senior director of student affairs and programs at the AAMC, thinks along the same lines — medicine has had to compete with other scientific fields for new female recruits. That trend may explain why medical schools saw enrollment tip toward men for a time, said Dr Young.

However, medical schools stepped up their game in response, he told Medscape Medical News. "They recommitted themselves to having a class of highly qualified women that was basically 50-50" compared with men.


The percentage rebound for female applicants and matriculants also reflects the growing number of high school and college programs that encourage women to pursue a career in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

These STEM pipeline programs for women "have been more concentrated in the last 5 years," said Lautenberger. "That's a huge contributor."

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