Women Leading the Charge in Health Care Education

Women Dominate Higher Education in Healthcare Fields

Women now represent a significant majority of students enrolled in the nation’s advanced healthcare education programs, spanning various disciplines such as medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, and veterinary medicine.

While nursing programs have traditionally seen a majority of female students, the trend has only recently shifted in other healthcare fields like dentistry, where women have begun to outnumber men. Below is a breakdown of gender representation across five key healthcare professional training programs.

Medical School

As per the Association of American Medical Colleges, during the 2023-24 academic year, women made up 54.6% of the total 97,903 students enrolled in MD-granting medical schools, with 53,422 women among them.

Gender disparities persist across medical specialties, with women dominating certain fields. For instance, in the 2022-2023 data, women accounted for a substantial proportion of residents in:

• Obstetrics and gynecology (87.2%)
• Pediatrics/psychiatry/child and adolescent psychiatry (combined) (75.5%)
• Pediatrics (73.6%)
• Allergy and immunology (65.8%)
• Public health and general preventive medicine (65.2%)
• Dermatology (61.7%)

In contrast, male physicians dominate in areas such as:

• Orthopedic surgery (79.6%)
• Interventional radiology (integrated) (77.5%)
• Neurological surgery (76.2%)
• Radiology-diagnostic (71.8%)
• Urology (67.7%)

Dental School

For the 2023-24 academic year, women accounted for 56.4% of first-year students in the country’s 72 dental schools. This marks a continuation of the trend initiated in the 2019-2020 academic year, wherein women have come to represent 56.7% of the 26,500 enrolled dental students.

Pharmacy School

The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy reported that women constituted 67.8% of students enrolled in first professional pharmacy degree programs for the fall of 2023. In the previous academic year, 66.4% of professionals awarded pharmacy degrees were women.

Nursing Programs

Nursing education encompasses several levels, from certificates to doctoral degrees. Focusing on the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), Master of Science in Nursing (MSN), and Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), women overwhelmingly dominate enrollments, even as efforts to increase male representation continue. A survey conducted by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing in 2023 revealed that men make up only 13% of BSN, 12% of MSN, and 15.4% of DNP enrollment.

Veterinary Medicine

The American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges indicated that women represented 84% of the veterinary medical class of 2027, solidifying a trend toward gender parity in veterinary medicine since 2009. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 70% of practicing veterinarians were women in 2023.

With healthcare professions projected to be among the fastest-growing employment sectors in the coming decade, the future for students in healthcare education looks promising. Women are positioned to benefit significantly from this growth, with opportunities to advance into healthcare leadership roles that correlate more closely with their representation as practitioners.