New Data Finds Wide Gender Disparities in Specialties of Medical Residents

The Association of American Medical Colleges has released new data on medical residents in the United States. Data are for graduates of MD-granting U.S. and Canadian schools and graduates of international medical schools. International medical school graduates include both U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizens who graduated from any medical school outside the United States and Canada.

The data shows there were 46,257 men who had graduated from U.S. or Canadian medical schools who were serving as medical residents in 2020-21. There were 41,405 women medical residents. Thus, women were 47.2 percent of all medical residents who had graduated from medical schools in the U.S. or Canada.

There were 18,140 male medical residents and 15,198 female medical residents in the United States who had graduated from foreign medical schools. So, women were 45.6 percent of the medical residents who had graduated from foreign medical schools.

There were wide differences in residencies by a specific field. For graduates of U.S. and Canadian medical schools, women were only 21.5 percent of the medical residents in neurological surgery and 22.2 percent of the medical residents in orthopedic surgery. Women were 34.9 percent of the medical residents in anesthesiology and 38.4 percent of the residents in emergency medicine.

Women were 87 percent of the medical residents in obstetrics and gynecology and nearly 70 percent of all medical residents in pediatrics.