It’s clear that women have shattered the glass ceiling of achievement
within the medical profession. They just don’t feel that way.
According to a new study, female medical students feel more anxious and less confident
about their knowledge and abilities. Males,
on the other hand, tend to overestimate their competence, even though women consistently do as well or better than their male counterparts in medical school.
And, at the end of medical school, males tended to unhesitatingly report that they felt
like doctors, while women tended to weigh their medical knowledge before
answering the question.
According to the study’s authors, more than half of medical
students are female, but educators may not be taking into account different learning
needs between the genders, overlooking, for instance, the issue of self-confidence.
Although I'm glad that this question is being raised, what bothers me about this and similar gender studies is the implication that women’s natural tendencies are wrong. Personally, I would rather have a
female doctor who was just as competent but a bit less cocksure than a male
doctor who believed himself more competent than he actually was. Then again, if women are less confident and more anxious because they have been conditioned to feel that way, parents and educators have a whole lot of work to do well before youth even get to medical school.
Photo: Student BMJ
