TABLE 28.-PROFESSIONAL NET EARNED INCOME OF MEN PHYSICIANS IN 1964

TABLE 29.-NET EARNED INCOME IN 1964 OF FULL-TIME WOMEN PHYSICIANS BY MARITAL STATUS

TABLE 30.-NUMBER OF PATIENTS SEEN PER WEEK IN 1964 BY WOMEN PHYSICIANS IN PRIVATE PRACTICE

TABLE 31.-NUMBER OF PATIENTS SEEN PER WEEK IN 1964 BY MEN PHYSICIANS IN PRIVATE PRACTICE

TABLE 32.-PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY OF WOMEN PHYSICIANS SINCE RECEIVING M.D. DEGREE

TABLE 33.-PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY OF MEN PHYSICIANS SINCE RECEIVING M.D. DEGREE

TABLE 34.-PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY OF WOMEN PHYSICIANS BY MARITAL STATUS AND NUMBER OF CHILDREN,

TABLE 35. REASONS FOR CURTAILMENT OF MEDICAL ACTIVITY BY WOMEN PHYSICIANS

TABLE 36.-REASONS FOR CURTAILMENT OF MEDICAL ACTIVITY BY MEN PHYSICIANS

STUDYING ATTITUDES OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION TOWARD WOMEN PHYSICIANS: A SURVEY

EXCERPTS FROM: WOMEN PHYSICIANS: THE MORE EFFECTIVE RECRUITMENT AND UTILIZATION OF THEIR TALENTS AND THE RESISTANCE TO IT-A SEVEN YEAR STUDY, BY HAROLD I. KAPLAN, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY AND DIRECTOR OF PSYCHIATRIC TRAINING, NEW YORK MEDICAL COLLEGE; SPONSORED BY THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH

The author was the Principal Investigator of the National Institute of Mental Health Special Residency Training Program. The questions posed in the survey were as follows:

...

(1) Do you make any special provision in the medical schooling of women with children in the area of special time off, less night work, extra vacations, etc.?

(2) Do you make any special provision in the professional assignment of women doctors with children in the area of special time off, less night work, extra vacations, etc.?

(3) Do you make special provision in the work schedule of women medical students and/or physicians when they are pregnant and when they are post-partum?

(4) Do you make any special provisions for the children of women medical students and/or women physicians in reference to nurseries, etc.?

(5) Can you offer any explanation for the increasing percentage of women doctors in your country and throughout the world?

There follows a summary of the results of the aforementioned survey. Although much of this survey was carried out several years ago (it has taken several years to complete it), the author recently spot checked the accuracy of some of the answers that had been given. This spot check confirmed the fact that most of these answers are currently valid and topical. While some responses are directly quoted, others are not, for obvious reasons, identified by direct quotation. Most medical school respondents were Deans, Associate or Assistant Deans, and on occasion a Chairman of the Admissions Committee. Well over 95% of all the medical schools in the United States and Canada cooperated magnificently and responded to the survey.

CONCLUSIONS OF THE SURVEY OF AMERICAN AND CANADIAN MEDICAL SCHOOLS STUDYING WOMEN PHYSICIANS

I. There were a significant number of schools which were very negative about single or married women in medicine

(A Western medical school): “In this school we have not been overly impressed with the women that have been admitted to medicine even though academically they are entirely satisfactory. I think they ordinarly have so many emotional problems that we have not been particularly happy with their performance. In this medical school we screen all women applicants as carefully as possible. In order to be as certain as we can concerning their motivation for studying medicine."

(A Western medical school): "We have admitted a few married women without children, but our experience with them has been almost uniformly poor. At the present we would not admit one unless she were an outstanding student. Up to the present we have refused to admit married women with children.

(A Western medical school): Over a period of years it has been the practice of the Dean and the admissions committee to scrutinize carefully applicants who are married women and even to discourage them. Author's comment: Thus while no school in the United States overtly or officially refuses to accept women, prejudice does seem to manifest itself by refusing medical school admission to married women with or without children, schools being very unimpressed with single women as medical students, or simply by an administration of a school being disinterested in adapting to the unique problems women have.

II. How are pregnant medical students treated in American medical schools? This is another measure of attitude to women; some schools simply deny that there is any unique problem or avoid facing it in reference to pregnancy (From the State University of Iowa School of Medicine): "In our experience, female medical students who become pregnant during the school year have not been adversely affected insofar as educational progress is concerned. One year we had three senior women give birth to children during the academic year. Each of them had cleverly arranged to be on the obstetrics service at the time of delivery and thus they claimed they did not miss a single day of school. We do not make any programmatic modification for women medical students with children in our medical school program. However, most of these students deposit their newborn in the metabolism research center where studies are being conducted on the metabolism of newborn infants."

(An Eastern medical school): "I have enough understanding my wife and daughters without attempting to explain the questions in this paragraph." Authors comment: The respondent is avoiding, for personal reasons, facing the problem of women in medicine.

III. Some schools are ambivalent in their attitude toward women, pregnancy, and medicine; while they deny any problem exists or avoid facing it, they make special provisions for this "non-existent" problem when it occurs (From the University of Florida at Gainesville): "We have made no particular concessions to a medical student who becomes pregnant. In general, the educational performance declines when they become pregnant. We have arranged the rotations in the clinical years to substitute a vacation at the time of delivery." (A Midwestern medical school): "If a married medical student becomes preg. nant, she must discontinue her training until after the birth of her child. Then if her physical condition permits her to resume work, she is usually allowed to continue." Author's comment: Although they are somewhat punitive in their attitude, they attempt some sort of restitution.

(University of Washington School of Medicine): "We do not have specific policies as to the admission of women to the School of Medicine. We, however, on the basis of our own experience, are reluctant to accept married women with children because of the obligations that they may have in tending to the problems of their children." Author's comment: Although reluctant to admit women, on the other hand, this school is very flexible once a woman becomes pregnant.

"If a female medical student becomes pregnant during her medical school year, she is allowed to carry on as long as she can and then arrangements are made for the completion of her work at a later time. These arrangements will depend upon the state of her medical career and we more often than not make whatever arrangements appear to be most suitable to her."

(University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston): "I have no doubt that unofficially married women with children would tend to be discouraged on an individual basis by the Admissions Committee. If the student becomes pregnant "the typical" course of events is for the student to lose as little as three days and as much as ten days from classes as a result of childbirth. If this period coincides with scheduled quizzes or examinations, the faculty is invariably considerate in setting up an alternative schedule. We have found it almost inevitable that we have a visit to the Student Loan Office for an additional loan or a scholarship, generally a few months before the baby comes, occasionally immediately afterwards. Again we have been so far fairly liberal on this if the student is in good standing; although I suppose in making such awards we sentimentally subserve the notion that conception is an Act of God." Author's comment: Act of God?

(Baylor University College of Medicine): "Inasmuch as the M.D. degree is not granted in gender, all who are granted it must qualify for its requirements. If necessary, the woman with children is given as much flexibility as is practical in the arrangement of courses of study, but pregnancy in this faculty is no sub