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Women doctors will outnumber their male colleagues by 2013 - but place a strain on the health service, according to a new report.
The study, by the Royal College of Physicians, has warned that as the numbers of women applying for medical school increase, there will be pressure on the sector to find jobs where they can work part-time or set hours so they can have children.
Women already account for 40 per cent of all doctors, 42 per cent of GPs and 28 per cent of hospital consultants. But more than half of all new medical students are female, suggesting that by 2013 they will make up the majority of GPs and some time after 2017 the majority of the medical workforce.
The Women and Medicine report claims this could lead to a shortage of surgeons and doctors in obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics or public health and in all areas where flexible working hours are not an option.
Most NHS doctors work full-time with only about 15 per cent on part-time contracts. But in hospitals, 21 per cent of women are on part-time contracts, compared with eight per cent of men.
Reader views (5)
Slightly less strain on the NHS than the sponging asylum scroungers and benefit fiddlers methinks.
- Steve, London
Mike, London - whaaaaaat????
- Loo, London
Mike of London, I think you need to see a doctor mate, the sex doesn't matter as long as they're a psychiatrist
- David, London
The unintended consequences of that silly @@@ Harriet Harman. New Labour out Nu-World order out. People power must reign supreme. The STATE is 2nd place to the individual NU-Lying-Loony-Labour never new that so never again must they be trusted with our FREEDOMS.
- Mike,, London
The unintended consequences of that silly Harriet Harman. New Labour out Nu-World order out. People power must reign supreme. The STATE is 2nd place to the individual NU-Lying-Loony-Labour never new that so never again must they be trusted with our FREEDOMS.
- Mike,, London
