The Shrinking Gender Gap in Medical School Graduates

In the late 1960s, 9 percent of medical school graduates were women. A decade later, about one in five medical school graduates was a woman.

The Association of American Medical Colleges reports that in 2011, 48.4 percent of all graduates of U.S. medical schools were women. That year there were 17,364 students who earned their medical degrees. Of these, 8,396 were women.

Since 2002, the number of women earning medical degrees increased from 6,923 to 8,396, an increase of 21.3 percent. During the same period the number of men earning medical degrees increased by 2.5 percent.