Acute Need for Female Urologists to Serve Indian Community

• 13 Mar 2021 11:41:35 AM
• |General Urology

Dear All,

Recently on the Women’s day, our present Hon. Secretary of USI wished all Female Urologists in the country and it was a good gesture on the part of USI and himself.

In India, there is considerable gender difference among Urologists with the number of Female Urologists being so low that the number can be counted on fingers. This is not auger well. We need more Female Urologists to serve our community and efforts will have to be made to encourage Female Doctors to take up Urology as their profession. As Chinna and recently Roy in his talk at USICON 2021, emphasized the need for a change in training pattern. They have asserted that the present 3 years after 3 years for General Surgery for becoming an Urologist is no longer viable with many changes in our approach being very visible. Though recently, there have been some Female Surgeons opting to make Urology as their career, it is still a small number. The main reason could be the prolonged period they have to be in training to become an Urologist. The contention of Roy and Chinna are accepted, probably by limiting the time to 5 years after MBBS could attract more female Doctors to take up urology. Recent statistics among those who take up Medicine as their profession there is a real surge in females getting selected to MBBS Courses and this is happening in many states of India notably Kerala. This could result in many more Female doctors taking up Urology as their chosen career.

I am providing an article addressing this issue in USA (PDF provided). In 2020, 30% of AUA match was filled by women. Overall, the authors found a positive correlation between the proportion of existing female residents and female faculty.

I am hopeful with time to come; many more MBBS female Doctors will take up Urology and towards this, the USI and individual Departments should do the encouragement. It is unfortunate that the Late MCI in its scheme of things, Gave Urology a step motherly attitude at both MBBS and MS levels. This made the trainees very little exposed in their formative years and this could be another reason why many Female MBBS graduates are reluctant to take Urology as their Career.

With warm Regards,

Venu 

Comments(3)

• 

  Dr. Roy Chally

  14 Mar 2021 08:14:51 PM

  Venu is right. In Kerala nearly 70 % of the medical graduates are females. In years to come we will have more female urologists if the direct admission to a 5 year course In urology after MBBS is accepted. 

• 

  Amrith Raj Rao

  15 Mar 2021 12:11:27 AM

  Dear Prof, 

  
  

  Totally aligned with your views. I did indeed post stats from NHS (UK) on the KUA whatsapp group which compared 2004 to 2020 with regards to women in surgical training. For Urology it was 5.5% in 2004 and 11.5% in 2020. The taskforce which looks at manpower requirements in the NHS had indeed looked at the graduates coming out of medical school and realised that women are slowly outnumbering men. Therefore, they encouraged women to get into surgical training and they had a red carpet as compared to men! 

  
  

  Warm Regards 

• 

  Shruti Pandit

  17 Mar 2021 09:25:13 PM

  I completely agree with your views sir. In India, 51% of students admitted into medical school are women of which only 2.8% go on to become Surgeons and less than 2% go on to become Urologists. In

   UK and USA, 11.2% and 9.2% of the Urologist are women respectively. This  immense gender gap is due to the perceived notion that Urology is the field primarily meant to deal with disorders of the male genitalia. Even calculus disease for that matter is more prevelant in males.

  As a female resident currently pursuing Mch Urology, the challenge I face is convincing the patients, majority of which are male, that I am indeed a Urologist.

  That being said, this gender gap is now diminishing, more and more women are now taking up surgery and there is expected to be an acute rise in the number of Urology trainee's to serve the Indian community!

  Warm regards,

  Dr. Shruti Pandit