Ophthalmology residencies like to rank women?

[Tbow]

The ophthalmology match results came out earlier this month. Lots of programs filled entirely with female residents, few filled entirely with male residents. Why is that? The applicant pool is not heavily female. Men are stupid? Women are smarter? Men are ugly? Women are better looking?

Temple - all women
Albany - all women
NYU - all women
Northwell (Long Island Jewish) - all women
Cornell - all women
Rochester - all women
Corewell Health (Michigan State) - all women
disclaimer - the women look like women, have female names, but no conclusion as to whether they self identify as female or male

In contrast,
Nassau County - all men

There are a few with one resident of one gender and the rest of the other gender
Stanford - all women except 1 man
Iowa - all women except 1 man

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[Ophthodoc2018]

There was a recent analysis/report that there was a significant gender disparity in ophthalmology residencies... I believe that residencies are trying to correct that ..

 

[Gonio5]

It's a known fact that an attractive appearance in both men and women is helpful to get into a competitive residency but not so much so to get into medical school. I've seen where an attractive woman and a tall, slim man were ranked slightly higher than their academic record warranted. One year in my residency, a very attractive woman who had a reasonably strong record but not outstanding was ranked #2 but ended up somewhere else.

For those applying, if overweight, try to lose some weight. Wear nice clothes. In my opinion, virtual interviews has resulted in shorter men because their shortcomings in height were more hidden by not having in-person interviews.

I read about gender disparities in ophthalmology residencies. It seems that the percentage women applicants to ophthalmology is slightly lower than the percentage of women in medical school. However, the success rate in matching is higher for women than men. The percentage of men going into OB-GYN and peds is significantly lower than the percentage of male medical students.

 

[eyeeye_captain]

SF Match hasn’t released their demographics report for the year so far, so who knows what the applicant pool mix was. The split has been slowly getting closer to 50/50 over the years.

Maybe it’s a small sample size, and considering some of these programs have small classes, maybe a it’s a weird anomaly. My med school/residency/fellowship classes had pretty big swings from year to year, and that was when it was like 2:1 male. Maybe this particular group had female applicants with better resumes on average so they were more likely to match. Maybe the programs listed had factors that led those particular women to rank them higher, which is bigger than programs’ rankings in the algorithm.

I’m failing to see this as a problem or anything nefarious. The prettier/skinnier/taller comment also strikes me as a personal or departmental bias.

 

[threeroses]

We also don't know whether programs matched their top choices from their rank lists - it is possible that they had an even number of men and women in their top 10, and then ended up matching whoever they did. I will say that at my program, the female applicants were very strong this year.

I think that these all-female classes are most likely a combination of chance and the fact that more women are applying to ophthalmology than in the past. If you look back a few years, many classes were all male and that was not unusual.

 

[LightBox]

Some programs (eg NYU) are notorious for matching attractive women. (Chair)Men like to be surrounded by good-looking women(?) Hmmmm....

 

[Slide]

FWIW, we matched a 50/50 split, and these applicants were ranked fairly highly. Drawing conclusions may be difficult because programs don't behave cohesively - every program has their own goals or agendas so I would not necessarily read too much into things globally.

 

[Dusn]

Do you have a link to published statistics?

Ophtho is known as a lifestyle specialty, which is more attractive to women. Also, fields like ortho and maybe urology are skewed towards men, obgyn is getting less competitive , so smart female surgical applicants are probably going to the other competitive fields like ophtho (and probably derm)

 

[Gonio5]

UCSF, University of Maryland, Duke, Penn State, Henry Ford, LSU New Orleans, University of North Carolina, University of Arizona and University of Wisconsin also accepted all women except one man this time.

UC Davis and Nassau County are the only ophthalmology residencies that I saw that had an all male resident match. Wake Forest and University of South Carolina matched all men except one woman.

Curiously, Ohio State University's urology program accepted all women except one man. So did University of Tennessee, University of Puerto Rico and MUSC Medical University of South Carolina.

So the count using others' posts are:
7 programs - all women in the latest match
11 programs - all women except one man in the latest match
2 programs - all men in the latest match
3 programs - all men except one in the latest match
So 18 programs all women or all except one versus 5 programs all men or all except one. The all women or all except one man programs tend to be larger so the shift to women in ophthalmology is much greater than 18:5.
There were no programs where all residents were Black. In previous years, there were one or two programs entirely Middle Eastern but not this year.

 

[threeroses]

Do you have a link to published statistics?

Ophtho is known as a lifestyle specialty, which is more attractive to women. Also, fields like ortho and maybe urology are skewed towards men, obgyn is getting less competitive , so smart female surgical applicants are probably going to the other competitive fields like ophtho (and probably derm)

That statistics typically come out in April, but here are the statistics from the last five years.

This report is interesting because it offers gender breakdowns for those who registered, those who applied, and those who actually matched. So for 2024, 42% of registrants were female and 51% were male, but 45% of matched applicants were female and 49% were male, suggesting that the females did perform better/were more likely to match. This pattern seems to stand every year since 2020. We can only speculate, but this might indicate that female applicants are more qualified/have stronger applications than their male counterparts, or programs may be favoring women.

*The unaccounted for 6-7% remainder either declined to report gender or selected cisgender, genderqueer, or non-binary/third gender.

The report also shows the ethnicity breakdown in the same way.

 

[mjohnsonets]

Are certain programs known for better maternity benefits? I've interviewed a few who gave birth during residency, and their experiences with maternity leave were all a little different. I believe one had to effectively make up time lost, but I forget the program. Others I've interviewed seemed to feel they were treated well.

 

[threeroses]

Are certain programs known for better maternity benefits? I've interviewed a few who gave birth during residency, and their experiences with maternity leave were all a little different. I believe one had to effectively make up time lost, but I forget the program. Others I've interviewed seemed to feel they were treated well.

A good thought - I don't think these benefits are typically publicized much, but some programs have reputations for being more family-friendly (example, Mayo). I don't think this exactly aligns with the programs that have matched more women, although Mayo did match all women a year or two ago. I suspect it is more random than all of that, but women probably are ranking programs higher who make them feel more welcome.

 

[davidxavi]

Some programs (eg NYU) are notorious for matching attractive women. (Chair)Men like to be surrounded by good-looking women(?) Hmmmm....

This makes no sense because the chair at NYU ophtho is a woman...

 

[Gonio5]

This makes no sense because the chair at NYU ophtho is a woman...

She's been there since after the pandemic started so roughly 2020/2021. How was it like pre-2021 or 2022?

One woman program director that I know is a militant feminist and favors women. Women in any field tend not to gravitate towards men like men gravitating towards women.

One orthopedic chair (now retired) was a gay man and took my classmate, who looked like a male model but who only managed to get one interview.

 

[Dusn]

Just want to point out that the thread started with an anecdotal observation that the OP noticed way more female residents than male residents.

Then the posted statistics shows that in reality there are still more matched male applicants than matched female applicants- although this is because there are also more male than female applicants to begin with. The anecdotal premise was wrong - there are not more female ophtho residents than males.

We’re back to anecdotes. But my main real take away from this so far is that anecdotes are not reliable evidence.

For all we know you all are just noticing and remembering the attractive female residents and forgetting the ugly male ones 😂