"Today more than half of all new medical students are female. Compared with the early 1960s, the number of men entering medical schools each year has doubled: but for women the number has increased by a factor of ten. Further along the career path, women form a majority – sometimes substantial – of the annual training intake into most specialties.Women already make up 40% of all doctors and 28% of all consultants. As the demographic change now underway works through to consultant level, women are likely – on present trends – to become the majority of general practitioners (GPs) by 2013, and the majority of all doctors sometime after 2017."

Thus begins the introduction to the UK Royal College of Physicians summary on the study "Women and Medicine: The Future". The report was commissioned following heightened interest in the increasing number of women entering the medical profession at undergraduate level. The aim of the report and its recommendations is to guide the profession and policy makers towards the development of a high quality workforce.

The comprehensive 159 page report was authored by Dr Mary Ann Elston and has been welcomed by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, Professor Steve Field and the President of the Royal College of Surgeons, Mr John Black.

To download the full (159 page) or summary (21 page) report click on these links:

Report findings include:

"The main challenge ahead is no longer barriers to entry or delays to the career progression of women. It is to ensure that the increasing proportion of women is effectively, economically, and fairly incorporated into the workforce for the benefit of patients. The demographic shift that is mapped in detail in our full report is still in its early stages. As it proceeds, there will be a need to put in place organisational structures and employment practices that are well designed to anticipate this change. The growing proportion of women doctors is changing the nature of the delivery of medical practice and that brings with it challenges as well as advantages. The profession would be failing in its duty to patients to ignore such concerns."