UH sees increase in female medical students

By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Health Writer

Joy Andrade volunteered at hospitals while growing up on the Big Island and recalls getting the question — "So, you want to be a nurse?" — while the guys standing alongside her would be asked what kind of doctor they wanted to be.

Today, Andrade, 27, is a member of the first-year class at the University of Hawai'i medical school, a class in which women outnumber men nearly 2 to 1.

The Konawaena High School graduate is interested in psychiatry and surgery, two fields that once were male-dominated but are now seeing an increase in interest from women.

Women this year make up 65 percent (40 of 62 students) of the first-year class in the John A. Burns School of Medicine at UH, up from 25 percent in 1985.

Hawai'i mirrors a national trend. Female applicants to medical schools across the country this year outnumbered male applicants for the first time, according to a study released this month by the Association of American Medical Colleges.

UH med school students and teachers aren't able to pinpoint any particular reason for the trend but predict the overall effect will mean that doctors will more accurately reflect the diversity of the community.

Several students see the gender shift as a reflection of a continuing acceptance in society of women in a wide range of traditionally male roles. Some women are attracted to direct-care specialties such as pediatrics, family practice and obstretrics/gynecology, but others are focusing on previously male-dominated fields such as surgery.

Dr. Damon Sakai, a teacher and associate dean at the UH medical school, said more women offer more choices to patients, more opportunities to find a doctor with whom patients have some rapport and shared background. He also said women graduates are more likely to focus on the poor and other members of the community with less access to good medical care.

A 1996 study showed that twice as many female as male medical students planned to practice in socioeconomically deprived areas.

The American Medical Association said the number of female physicians in the United States has nearly quadrupled over the past 20 years, with women now making up more than 25 percent of physicians.

State Health Department director Dr. Chiyome Fukino is a 1979 graduate of the UH medical school. She recalls being a student when women were in the minority and the ratio was closer to one woman for every four men. She sees more women in medicine as a positive trend. "Women are a lot more instinctively nurturing," she said.

Senior associate dean Satoru Izutsu, 75, serves as director of admissions for the medical school, where he has worked since 1988. He sees the gender trend as part of the school's emphasis on finding the right students without any emphasis on a particular demographic. "I think we're the nation's most ethnically diverse school," he said.

Izutsu said he believes the trend toward more female medical students reflects the efforts in lower education to emphasize math and science for girls. "The whole push toward women in sciences became very crucial," Izutsu said.

Both men and women in the current first-year class said the trend is helping to change the face of medicine to a more compassionate one. "Medicine is not compassionate enough," said Jon Reitzenstein, 24, a Portland, Ore., native specializing in pediatrics.

Medical student Doug Crowley, a 23-year-old Kaimuki resident planning to specialize in internal medicine, said having more women in the field helps offer patients more of a choice in care. "I think it's going to change the stereotypes," he said.

Jennie Foster, who is interested in a pediatric specialty, said some men prefer women doctors. "Men sometimes feel more comfortable letting down their guard around women," said the Kailua native and Punahou School graduate.

Medical student Dan Furoy is 22 and from Seattle. He's planning to specialize in surgery and likes the idea of being outnumbered by women in his classes. Furoy has found his female classmates smart and easy to learn from. And he jokes that there's the side benefit of "more girls to look at."

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2429.