This is wild speculation on my part, but I'd assume that the MD/PhD enrollment mimics the enrollment for MD-only, which is right around 50/50. What field are you in that seems to have so few women? I'm curious.
this is certainly not true, and the numbers of women in mstp overall are significantly less than men. for those who are interviewing - some years are 'good years' where the class is almost balanced, but if you look at the composition of other years in the same program, the disparities will begin to be made apparent. this issue has many contributing factors, some are systematic and many are not. to start, here is an excellent article entitled "The other physician-scientist problem: Where have all the young girls gone?" in nature medicine:
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nm/journal/v8/n5/full/nm0502-439.html
i included some relevant excertps for those who do not have access to nature med. these are all cited from the article:
About Trends:
"Part of the explanation can be found in patterns of application to graduate educational programs. Taking Harvard Medical School as an example, it is encouraging to see that approximately 50% of the applicants to the MD program and 50% of the applicants to the PhD programs are women. This has been the case for some time, and matriculants generally reflect these proportions. In contrast, however, only 30?35% of the applicants to the Harvard-MIT MD-PhD program are women, and this fraction has not changed over the past 12 years. Of the 310 Harvard MD-PhD graduates since 1974, only 53 (17%) have been women, owing to both fewer female applicants and more attrition among female students. Proportions in other MD-PhD programs are not markedly different2. In other words, women are less likely to enter combined MD-PhD degree programs than they are to enter either MD or PhD degree programs."
The reasons:
"Women in their early 20s consistently cite 4 reasons why they are less likely to choose this career path. Firstly, they are concerned that it will be impossible to combine a successful career with childbearing and family life. There is no question that this was once true, as carefully detailed by Elga Wasserman in her interviews with women members of the National Academy of Sciences4. However, as she also points out, it is decidedly not true now and has not been true for several decades. Most women in science, including women physician-scientists, have husbands and children. But most physician-scientists do not finish their formal education until they are 30 years or older, and they must subsequently negotiate residency and fellowship before they have independent control over their hours. This makes it very difficult to find flexible periods for pregnancy and infant care. Most people still expect women to assume the major responsibilities of caring for children and running the household. These are heavy duties, and the unpredictability of academic careers makes them seem even more daunting.
Secondly, many women feel that they have to be better than their male counterparts to be considered equal. They worry that they will not be able to 'super-compete' at a more advanced level. They feel less comfortable promoting themselves and their work than their male counterparts seem to feel. This problem is exacerbated in physician-scientist training, which is relatively amorphous, has fewer defined milestones and requires more academic entrepreneurship among its trainees.
Thirdly, women receive very little encouragement to become physician-scientists. They hear the same message that men do?that it is hard to succeed as a physician and as a researcher?and are often told that it is even more difficult for women. This message comes from many directions?from family, undergraduate advisors, career counselors and even from individuals assigned to interview them for MD-PhD programs.
Fourthly, they feel that they lack compelling role models. They meet few, if any, women who are highly successful as physician-scientists. They empathize with the struggles faced by younger women faculty. They sense the quiet discontent felt by more senior women who, as documented in the 1999 MIT faculty report, face marginalization and chronic inequities in salary, lab space, recognition, resources and response to outside offers1. At all steps of the tenure ladder, women are uneasy with the culture of academic medicine, and have the perception that one must be highly aggressive to succeed."
All hearsay though...
