

Gender inequality is a serious and pressing topic in every realm of the world today. Women are continuously fighting for fair and just equality in the all the countries all over the world. Women are facing discrimination most prominently in the work place. Here, women are degraded for simply being women and they are treated unfair compared to their male equals. Gender inequality is well displayed in the medical field and healthcare professions. Specifically in the medical women doctors are currently being paid significantly less, stereotyped against, and even patronized for being women pursuing a career that is perceived to be above their mental capabilities. This inequality not only affects the women currently with the profession of being a doctor, but it also affects young females who aspire to become doctors, physicians, or nurses. Digging into the depths of the gender gap of the medical specialists’ field of work can surface the true reasons as to why inequality is continuously growing, guidelines can be discovered to help lessen the gap, and it can give insight into how discrimination affects the mental and social health of women. 

Among all the types of discrimination that women are facing, the most obvious display of gender inequality upon the medical specialists is the enormous and ever-growing pay gap.  Doctors across the world attend medical school for an extensively long amount of time and then they end up working long, grueling hours. However, there are many rewards for this strenuous work: they are constantly saving and changing lives and are paid a comparatively large salary. However, imagine exerting all of your time and energy into your work and then not being paid equally compared to someone who did the same work as you. That is what female doctors are currently faced with in their field of work. In an article written by Catherine Saint Louis, she refers to female doctors as “Dr. Paid Less.” As this name-calling tactic may sound amusing, it is remarkably accurate. In a study accomplished by Mandy Oaklander, 10,000 doctors were interviewed and examined. When the examination of pay gap was fully completed and the wage was examined, women were found to be paid eight percent less than male medical specialists. Eight percent does not appear to be large number, but in a doctor’s wage it accounts for approximately $20,000. There are 61 different fields of medical specialties, and out of all of the fields, only one field has women receiving the higher pay (Saint Louis). That field is radiology. Female radiologists are earning approximately $2,000 more than their male counterparts. On the other end of the spectrum, according to Saint Louis, male doctors specializing in cardiothoracic surgery are being paid approximately $44,000 more than women are. The wage gap is favoring men, and there seems to be little adjusting occurring to make a change. 

The existing pay gap may not seem like a pressing predicament, but it is affecting the way female medical specialists are working. Saint Louis states that the pay gap is due to a “lack of transparency” and to the fact that people do not want to think about how their actions can be viewed as unequal and unfair. People do not want to admit to their wrongdoings; their wrongdoings being the unequal payment for equal workloads. Females are shown to have a decrease in work productivity when they were given the results depicting that they significantly are paid less. The female medical specialists lose confidence in their own work, which in turn, causes the work of the women to not be as passionate and successful. 

The unchanging pay gap is said to be from two factors. The first factor being that women are less likely to be aggressive in their negotiation of their wages. Male medical specialists are more likely to be more demanding in the negotiation of their wages, which results in a higher pay. The second factor is that women are less likely to use outside job offers to negotiate a raise with the current employer. Men are more likely to use outside job offers to persuade their current employers to increase their current pay, which also will result male medical specialists to have higher pay compared to the female medical specialists. However, neither of these factors can morally justify the reasoning behind the pay gap. Women should not have to negotiate for equal pay because equal pay should already be an understatement when determining one’s pay.

The next significant gap that can be seen in the gender gap of the medical specialists’ field of work deals with the numbers and career intentions of the medical school students. Martin Yella-Hewings states in the article entitled, “Gender gap in medicine remains in the spotlight in 2016,” that women are equally and well represented in the numbers of the medical school graduates. Women are entering medical school with the same intentions as the men are: to graduate and become successful, determined doctors. However, upon exiting medical school, women are less likely to become doctors as men are. In a study completed by Carrie Pallardy, the results conclude that 70 percent of all medical specialists are male, even though only 52 percent of medical school graduates were male. There has to be a cause to this decline in the number of women, and it deals with the intentions of the students after graduation.  Women enter medical school with clear, strong intentions of the plans they have for themselves after graduation and the beginning of their career in the medical specialists’ field of medicine. These intentions begin as equivalent to men. However, after graduation, the intentions of the men remain at the same high and strong level, whereas the women’s intentions seem to have taken a decrease, which results in fewer women actively pursuing a career as a medical specialist. Why would women suddenly have a decrease in their motivation? “These schools are responsible for educating and developing many current physician-scientists, and it is puzzling that they should show the most negative trends concerning medical student research career intentions” (Castro et al. 417). There is discrimination against women and it is affecting their future. 

In Martin Yella-Hewings’ article discussed above, the types of discrimination women are facing in medical schools and in the field of medical specialists are also explored. While disregarding the pay gap, women are still facing other forms of discrimination. Those other forms include: differences in research output, judgment on the work-life balance, and career progression. All of these forms result in a severe bias in the workplace for women. The first form deals with the amount of research output women are having in the medical field. Most medical specialists will produce medical journals regarding their research, both experimental and non-experimental. It is shown that the work of men is more likely to be published compared to the work of women. Women medical specialists write only 38 percent of published medical journals. How are women supposed to stay motivated to share their work when their work is more likely to end up in the trash pile? The next form of bias that women have to deal with is in regards to their work-life balance. In society today, women are still viewed as the “home makers.” Therefore, this leads to the question of are women capable of still being mothers and successful workers? In the work place, female medical specialties are often discriminated against due to the fact that they are responsible for taking care of a family separate from their work. Female medical specialists should not be punished for raising children if they are capable of also maintaining a successful career. Male medical specialists also have families, but they are not treated any differently in the work place because so. For that reason, women should not be treated any lesser for their healthy work-life balance. 

The last form of discrimination that female medical specialists deal with is their slow, almost non-existent career progression. Compared to 50 years ago, the number of female medical specialists has increased significantly. However, there has been little to no increase in the number of females holding leadership roles. Women enter the medical field as medical specialists and will continue the rest of their careers as that; they receive no promotion. The case is different for men. Men enter the medical field as medical specialists, and they are more likely to receive promotions to become chief of surgery, head of a certain department, or other leadership positions. Why are women not obtaining promotions? It is because female medical specialists are simply viewed as the lesser versions of male medical specialists. Women are viewed as the lesser version of men because of their emotions. Women are more susceptible to becoming emotionally attached to patients; however, this should not be viewed in a negative manner. Emotional attachments can lead to a stronger pursuit of making sure the patient maintains a healthy and stable condition. Therefore, women should not be viewed as the lesser versions of men in the medical specialties field of healthcare. 

Many ideas have been proposed as to how to end the gender inequality in medical specialties. The ideas consist of forcing women to take a stand for their own rights. As women should take a bigger stand in receiving equality, it should not be solely on women to solve this gender gap. Morgan Leafe shares a personal experience of her medical career in her article entitled “The Gender Gap Persists in Medicine. What Can We Do About it?” In her first few years of her medical specialty career, a male leader sought her out and acted as her mentor. He guided her and encouraged her to pursue a higher level of excellence. This male leader led her to succeed in her career and eventually led her to gain a leadership position. He acted as a source of motivation and reassurance. Therefore, her suggestion for decreasing the gender gap in the medical field can be found in this following quotation: “If more selfless leaders like the ones I’ve had the good fortune to work with in my career reach out to ambitious women physicians, perhaps we can tap into otherwise underutilized potential instead of allowing it to be squandered over the years because of frustrations with system flaws” (Leafe). This demonstrates that it is not only the responsibility of the female medical specialists to decrease the gender gap, but there is a way for the male medical specialists to reduce the gap. If women are actively sought out and encouraged like their male counterparts are, they are more likely to continue to have high levels of motivation and the gap would become smaller between male and female medical specialists. 

Female medical specialists are facing great gender inequality in today’s society. Women are degraded for simply being a woman. Being a woman means having emotions and feelings, raising children, and being less aggressive. What being a woman does not mean is being less competent, less intelligent or less deserving. Female medical specialists are working hard to be accepted into medical school, and then working even harder to stay competitive in medical school, and then graduate to become the lesser versions of men. Despite putting in equal work, women are constantly treated unfairly. Women face inequality in every area of their professional life. Female medical specialists are paid approximately $20,000 less than male medical specialists. Women are paid less than men in every specialty besides radiology, where they are paid $2,000 more than men. Women also hold fewer leadership positions than men and are less likely to have their medical journals published compared to men. “There needs to be greater institutional oversight of advancement, compensation, and the overall gender climate for women (Carr et al. 198). Most people say that the large amount of gender inequality that women face is due to the fact that women are less likely to take a stand for their own rights; however, if men were to actively seek women out as mentees, women would feel more accepted and more likely to be confident in one’s self. That would lead to a decrease in the gender gap in the medical specialists’ field of work. Female doctors deserve to be treated equally in all aspects of their career. 
