When in the mid ‘50s I enrolled at the Faculty of Medicine, the first-year students were over four hundred and approximately thirty five-forty were women. When we reached graduation time at the end of the sixth year, there were 90 of us, and as many as 20 were women, as attested by the pictures taken of the graduands. It is well known that women, when motivated, apply themselves to study much more than men. For some years, now, first-year women students have been exceeding men in number.
Today they dominate universities; in a little while this will also impact the profession: they are expected to get ahead within the next ten years. Even though the sacrifice involved by this profession heavily affects private life, a feminisation tendency is manifesting in medicine: this is now an ascertained and constant trend, which will continue throughout the next few years.
This uncontrollable forward movement will bring a wave of humanisation, thanks to the well-known greater readiness to help and greater understanding typical of women, who as everyone knows are more patient; however, in line with the well-known market laws, women’s lower requirements will also involve a remuneration drop within this profession.
Besides traditional paediatrics, women’s leading specialisations are gynaecology, anaesthesiology, and radiology.
Furthermore, men appear to be deserting this profession and privileging other so-called “modern” disciplines, such as informatics and economics, which are far more remunerative.
In 1980, this army of women doctors counted 24,256 people, versus 109,831 men; in 1990 it had 64,362 versus 179,275 men and in the year 2000, out of 309,145 medical practitioners on the roll, as many as 96,678 were women, that is 31.3 percent. In the meantime, this percentage has further grown and, as of 30 June 2002 had reached 31.87 percent; in fact, the number of women has exceeded one hundred thousand.
The feminisation trend chiefly affects the under-35 age bracket: as of 30 June 2002, women doctors under 30 were 8,210, whereas men were 5,612, with a 68.35 – 31.65 ratio. After Sardinia, with 42.59, the region boasting the greatest number of women doctors is Lombardy, with 36.13, followed by Piedmont, with 34.98, and Emilia Romagna with 34.64.
In Campania, Apulia and Valle d’Aosta men still prevail, with 75.38, 73.76 and 71.51 respectively. Whereas we have a constant increase in medicine graduates (1 doctor every 179 citizens), we are witnessing a steady drop in the number of family doctors, owing to the increase in the number of patients per doctor from the optimal number of 1000 to the maximum number of 1500 (which is the maximum number of patients a family doctor is allowed to have); however, once again, the number of new entries, as well as the number of graduates enrolling in general practitioners’ training courses, has been displaying for the last ten years an increasing number of women.
In certain smaller Medical Associations, such as that of Asti, women’s assault has not led to a prevalence over the sterner sex. The Equal Opportunities Commission of the Association of Surgeons and Odontologists in Venice has also carried out an interesting survey on the quality of life of women doctors.
Out of a sample of 200 women, almost half of them, that is 43.5 percent, works on the territory, 41 percent are hospital employees and 15.5 percent have temporary assignments or are freelances. 37 percent are either divorced or single, an equal number do not have children, and the number of children for those who have any is 1, rarely 2. Furthermore, they tend to have children very late in life, to avoid ruining their career. There are very few who occupy executive positions.

N.B.- We hereby wish to thank the Provincial Association of Surgeons and of Odontologists and the ENPAM EDP Centre for their cooperation.
(traslation by Interpres)