Women Surgeons in the New Millennium

Abstract

The increasing presence of women in the field of surgery during the past 3 decades has resulted in a diverse surgical workforce that is more representative of the society it serves.¹ This trend follows the evolution that has taken place in other areas of society, where women have entered many nonmedical professional fields since the end of World War II.² In those nonmedical fields, considerable efforts have been made to better understand and accommodate women's specific needs and expectations. In the medical field, a career in surgery has significant lifestyle implications: the profession is associated with high degrees of patient acuity, significant on-call responsibility, and irregular work hours, all requiring a significant commitment of personal time. The extent to which the surgical workplace has evolved to accommodate women and their role in family life is unknown to the public, in general, and to the upcoming generation of women physicians, in particular. This is an important issue reaching far beyond each woman surgeon. For instance, women in surgery remain highly visible, as they still constitute only approximately 14% of the surgical workforce in the United States.¹ They serve, therefore, as important role models, influencing those women medical students who are considering a surgical career.³