There is still hostility towards women doctors
This week's Times Radio interview with retired surgeon Meirion Thomas highlighted the fact some worrying views persist around female doctors. Our president Jane Dacre explores this further
I have been a women doctor for many years and have had a fascinating career, enhanced by the opportunity to support many thousands of patients. I was delighted to see that, for the first time, in January 2025, the number of women doctors on the GMC register with a license to practice outnumbered men. I see this as cause for celebration, and am surprised to see that there is still hostility against women doctors from some.
Although women have been caring for the sick since early history, they were excluded from the medical profession with the setting up of the medical royal colleges. My own college, the Royal College of Physicians was founded in the time of Henry VIII, and women were not allowed to join. Their role in life was to bear children, and those who were too outspoken were at risk of being branded as witches, and burnt at the stake. I was elected as RCP President in 2014, the 100th President but only the third woman to have held the role in the 500 year history of the RCP.
One would think that the world had now moved on, but not for some people. This week, a retired surgeon, Dr Meirion Thomas was interviewed on Times Radio. He stated that we were choosing the wrong people to go into medicine, and that women were much more likely to go on strike than men. He admitted his views would be unpopular, going on to say that “women have got to have babies”, and have “got to have time to bring up their children”.
This is not so different from the views published by the anti-suffrage movement when women were campaigning for the vote just over 100 years ago. There was a view in those days that menstruation was thought to weaken the mind and make higher education unsuitable to women as it may impact their child bearing potential……… with quotes in the Lancet (1878) such as:
‘A woman as a doctor is a conceit contradictory to nature and doomed to end in disappointment to both the physician and the sick…..
Or …
’women ought not to be encouraged to enter a profession for which they were constitutionally unfitted’ (President of the RCP, Sir Richard Douglas in 1907).
A recent anniversary to note is that the London School of Medicine for Women was 150 years old in 2024. The LSMW has graduated some iconic female doctors since then… often overlooked in their career success.
Elizabeth Garret Anderson and Sophia Jex Blake founded what became the Royal Free School of Medicine in 1874, and the Royal Free Hospital, 50 years old this year, was the first hospital to take women on clinical placements. The Medical Women’s Federation (MWF) was founded 108 years ago by Jane Harriet Walker, to support the early women doctors.
Jane Harriet Walker, who qualified in 1884
This is all a cause for celebration, like the increasing numbers of women in our medical schools and on the medical register.
The MWF has been improving gender equity in medicine for over 100 years. It advocates for women doctors, helps them to thrive, to enhance their career prospects and provide the best possible care to their patients. Our strategic objectives are focused on the Potential of women doctors, raising their Profile, influencing Policy as it relates to women doctors, Prosperity of the organisation and its membership, and working in Partnership with others.
Women contribute very positively to high quality safe healthcare. They are making an impact across all specialties and are taking on leadership positions and influencing healthcare policy and delivery.
Our recently published manifesto for Women doctors acknowledges that 24% of UK adults live with multiple co-morbidities. With an increasingly aged population, we need more doctors who can handle complexity, balance risks and lead diverse teams - and women doctors have been shown to do this well. It is clear to us that our health economy is not currently maximising the potential of its women doctors nor retaining them. Research shows modestly better outcomes for patients treated by women doctors and by diverse teams. It is essential to give each doctor support to reach their potential which will benefit the health of the UK population. All doctors need to be scientifically literate and clinically able, with an exceptional ability to communicate with patients, clinical colleagues and others. Women doctors have these skills and should be valued for them.
And yet, we still encounter hostility, evidenced by increased trolling on social media, sexual harassment and misconduct, a wide gender pay gap, and the publication of comments like those made on Times Radio, and picked up in the wider press.
Women doctors deserve to be valued, and welcomed in the medical workforce. There is no legitimate reason for this continued hostility.