Medicine's "Future": Pilot Data from a US Sample Shows Surgeons More Likely to Encourage Children to Pursue Medicine

Authored by Irene Dimitriadis

A survey was conducted to ascertain knowledge on when doctors start having children and the likelihood of them encouraging their children to follow in their footsteps. Across all training levels, surgical specialties are more likely to encourage their children to become physicians compared to non-surgical specialties (64.3% vs 45.5%; p<0.0001, respectively). Amongst physicians with sons and daughters, 21.2% of responders report a gender bias in regards to encouraging their children to become doctors, of which almost twice as many parents report that they would encourage their son compared to their daughter to pursue medicine (14% vs 7.2%, p=0.08).

To Read More... Fulltext in Journal of Gynecology and Women’s Health in Juniper Publishers