MSMC has had two women presidents, Lucille Glicklich-Rosenberg, MD in 1985 and Marcia Richards, MD in 1990. This group of talent will hopefully provide another female president for MSMC soon. Female physicians tend to cluster in several specialties. Female physicians are younger on average than are male physicians. Women physicians continue to be under represented in medical school administrative posi tions, holding only 5 deanships in 1996 and they tend to be clustered in Assistant professor and instructor positions in medical schools.
Women physicians make less money than men overall.
There is debate about whether this is due to their choice of specialty and the number of patient visits they have each week. Overall women see about 20 fewer patients in a week and work 7 fewer hours than male physicians. September gives us all a chance to reflect on the contributions of women physicians in our past and present. It also gives us a chance to offer a word of encouragement to those many women in medical schools and residencies who will have much to contribute to medicine in the future.