Females applying to anesthesia

[dr.sartorius]

Asking for a female colleague:

"From my limited experience it seems as though anesthesia has more of a male predominance, as a female (MS4) applying to the field, are there any advantages/disadvantages in regards to probability of matching? I guess what I am asking is do programs try and rank an equal amount of men and women (which would give a female applying an advantage because of less females applying, assuming that is true of course), or is it 1:1 probability. I understand disadvantages may be that ranking a female could be viewed be less desirable due to potential pregnancy in the future, time off, etc in comparison to male residents. Please forgive me if these questions seem ignorant, I am genuinely curious. Thank you in advance for your thoughts/opinions/experiences!"

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[WholeLottaGame7]

Asking for a female colleague:

"From my limited experience it seems as though anesthesia has more of a male predominance, as a female (MS4) applying to the field, are there any advantages/disadvantages in regards to probability of matching? I guess what I am asking is do programs try and rank an equal amount of men and women (which would give a female applying an advantage because of less females applying, assuming that is true of course), or is it 1:1 probability. I understand disadvantages may be that ranking a female could be viewed be less desirable due to potential pregnancy in the future, time off, etc in comparison to male residents. Please forgive me if these questions seem ignorant, I am genuinely curious. Thank you in advance for your thoughts/opinions/experiences!"

For your "colleague":

I don't know what the data actually is, but my experience has been that anesthesia is pretty 50:50. My class was 10 females, 4 males. The class above me had like 3 residents all pregnant at the same time. Most of the faculty that I've been a part of or known have been pretty close to 50:50. Maybe there are programs out there that discriminate in one way or another, but none that I've been a part of. I think it's a non-issue.

If you want a gender advantage, consider radiology. I accompanied my wife on some of her interview dinners, and it was a serious sausage-fest up in there. Either that or ortho. Even gen surg and a lot of the surgical subspecialties seem pretty balanced these days, at least resident-wise. Most surgical faculty are still pretty heavily skewed male.

 

[sevoflurane]

Asking for a female colleague:

"From my limited experience it seems as though anesthesia has more of a male predominance, as a female (MS4) applying to the field, are there any advantages/disadvantages in regards to probability of matching? I guess what I am asking is do programs try and rank an equal amount of men and women (which would give a female applying an advantage because of less females applying, assuming that is true of course), or is it 1:1 probability. I understand disadvantages may be that ranking a female could be viewed be less desirable due to potential pregnancy in the future, time off, etc in comparison to male residents. Please forgive me if these questions seem ignorant, I am genuinely curious. Thank you in advance for your thoughts/opinions/experiences!"

Edit: tailored towards post residency experience.

Don't worry about it and do what you want to do but don't demand this or that because you are a female physician. Keep that in mind. You are a member of a group and will be expected to carry equal weight.

Some groups may see a female as a disadvantage and some might see it as an advantage. Some may require you to carry your work load and some may not if you are giving high value calls away.

My wife is an anesthesiologist. She has done everything from hearts to peds. Never been a problem. Our group has 3 anesthesia couples + several other solo females (including a recent hire).

Might be problem in a small group, but in a medium/big group you should def. find a comfortable place you like working in and anesthesia is a lot more flexible than other professions... so keep that in mind.

 

[AdmiralChz]

Our program does not focus at all on male / female, they would never admit this but love the women having kids and taking extra leave for the advantage of having a highly-experienced senior resident around in July and maybe August for no additional cost. Our program is pretty lenient for taking extra time off (it's unpaid, though), with the reason above being a big factor.

 

[michigangirl]

non-issue. I guarantee you the vast majority of programs are not making rank lists thinking about how many residents may get pregnant over the next four years. I wouldn't base your rank list or anything else on how many males or females there are in a program. It varies year to year, so cant predict.

 

[Pharmado]

Our program tried to keep a relatively 1:1 gender balance, but the last 2 classes were skewed some with M>F. That's something that the program has been discouraged about because it isn't them ranking women lower, it's that less women are choosing our program (most likely because we are becoming less and less family friendly). I've never seen any evidence to support a gender bias against women. If anything I think they might encourage women more.