The female of the species is more delayed than the male.

The future of medicine and women... Interesting publication that states “there is no evidence that female NHS doctors have been directly disadvantaged in their career progression, or that having children negatively affects the career progression of women who have always worked full time.”(1) show that more men (16%) than women (6%) who had worked full time were in surgery. The percentage of women who worked part time who were in surgery was at a shockingly dismal 2%. (oh dear) with the corresponding association between not doing surgery related to being female and working part-time. The median time for attaining consultancy was 11.7 years for men, 11.3 for women who had always trained full time and 12.3 years for all women.

So I suppose all these statistics tell us nothing we couldn’t already surmise: female doctors, who make up an increasing proportion of NHS doctors and make up the majority of medical students in UK medical schools, would take longer to attain consultancy (and would work about ¾ of the workload of their male colleagues, other studies quote). But if women worked the same amount as men, they tend to achieve consultancy faster.

Some more interesting stat facts:

• 12% of British medical graduates are no longer working under the NHS after 2 years of qualification.
  
• Approximately 50% of international medical graduates eventually leave the NHS. (2)
• in 2007, only 7% of accepted surgical consultants and 27% of surgical ST1's were female (3)
  

In conclusion, I would have a 50% likelihood of remaining in the UK after my 20^th year of qualification and I would have a 98% chance of not doing surgery. HMMMMMMMM……

(1)Raylor KS, Lambert TW, Goldacre MJ. Career progression and destinations, comparing men and women in the NHS: postal questionnaire surveys. BMJ 2009; 338:b1735.

(2) Michael J Goldacre, Jean M Davidson, Trevor W Lambert. Retention in the British National Health Service of medical graduates trained in Britain: cohort studies. BMJ 2009; 337:b1977

(3) Elston MA.Women and medicine: the future. London: Royal College of Physicians. 2009.