Medical care is changing before our very eyes – not only the technological and pharmaceutical revolution but also its human fabric. With the feminization of medical school students – more than 50 percent are now women – more doctors will be needed, as women tend to accept less-than-full-time jobs so they can attend to their families. They also prefer certain specialties, such as pediatrics, family medicine, genetics, geriatrics and gynecology (among others) and eschew such fields as anesthesiology and surgery.
Prof. Rivka Carmi, a trained pediatrician and geneticist who broke the glass ceiling 15 years ago by becoming Israel’s first female medical school dean and, later, first female president of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, predicts that Israel will eventually have to import surgeons from abroad to meet the need. Speaking at the Israel Medical Conference attended by some 1,000 members of the general public at Jerusalem’s International Convention Center earlier this month, Carmi noted that “most of the decision makers are men. There a relatively very few female medical school professors and department heads.”
Prof. Rivka Carmi at the Israel Medical Conference in Jerusalem. (photo credit:JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH)
