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The number of female physicians are increasing in
Bangladesh, a ‘feminization’ of medical health workforce is occurring before
our eyes, but without the health systems being prepared to offer them a safe
and secure, gender-sensitive work environment and prevent ‘system loss’. The
results are presented in a study conducted by the BRAC James P Grant School of
Public Health (BRAC JPGSPH), BRAC University and published in the open access
PloS One journal, one of the renowned public health journal.
The study was conducted as a part of a Master of Public
Health (MPH) dissertation project at BRAC JPGSPH. It aimed to identify the
level and trend of sex composition of Bangladeshi physicians during 2006–2015,
factors that motivate female students to study medicine including the reasons
for their parents’ preference for this, propensity for particular specialties, and
challenges faced by them both as students as well as professionals in work and
family lives.
The study analyzed the data collected from Bangladesh
Medical and Dental Council (BMDC) and found that during 2006-2015, 52% of the
total registered physicians in Bangladesh were female. Also, data from selected
medical college during 2011-16 showed that 67% and 52% new enrollees in the
private and public medical colleges respectively were female. Medicine and
Surgery were the most popular specialties amongst males during this time (87%)
while Obstetrics and Gynaecology (96%) was the most common for females,
followed by Paediatrics (57%). In other specialties such as Ophthalmology,
Psychiatry and Anaesthesia, the proportions of female were found to be less than
30%. Social status (66%), respect for medical profession (91%), image of a
‘noble profession’ (91%), and prospects of helping common people (94%) were common
motivating factors for the female medical students to pursue career in medicine.
Gender disparity in work, career, and work environment
especially in rural areas, and problems of work-home balance, were a few of the
challenges mentioned by the female students and in-service trainees which
forced some of them to drop out of the system. Also, this scenario conditioned
them to crowd into a few selected specialties. All these have adverse effect on
health system of Bangladesh including problems with rural deployment and
retention, system loss (attrition), and shortage of faculty in certain pre- and
para-clinical medical subjects.
The authors concluded that ‘increasing number of female physicians in health workforce,
outnumbering their male peers, is a fact of life for health system of
Bangladesh. It’s high time that policy makers pay attention to this and take
appropriate remedial measures so that women can pursue their career in an
enabling environment and serve the needs and priorities of the health system’.
Read the article at:
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0210820
3 comments:
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I find this topic very interesting. I hope this trend will continue to rise and more women will join this vital workforce. However, more investigation is needed to see what proportion of this female medical graduates actually stay in their profession as given the social reality, many may get married and start family and do not participate fully in the labor force. So, they may be more female physicians as starters but more males have a sustained career. Also, of interest will be what proportion end up holding policy making roles in public and private sector. Unless they go up the ladder to those roles, they will not be able to make visible changes nor will they provide meaningful inputs in national level health policies and programs.
Hasanat Alamgir
Really interesting topic as well as informative post. Spreading awareness in these way is really needed. Thanks to you.
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