As more women study medicine, look to where it all started

In Boston, 175 years ago, a medical college opened its doors to women, and 12 enrolled. Today, roughly 52,000 women are studying to be doctors at U.S. med schools. In fact, women’s enrollment outpaces men’s.

Since November 1, 1848, when the Boston Female Medical College opened — the first in the world for women — Boston has become a hub for medical innovations that attracts thousands of students, male and female.

There are 350,000 practicing women doctors in the U.S., and while their achievements bring economic empowerment, they also help patient outcomes. “We’ve proven that outcomes are better when it’s a diverse group,” says Dr. Jennifer Tseng, the surgeon-in-chief at Boston Medical Center, the teaching hospital at Boston University’s medical school. “Especially in high-stakes operations, you want to make sure that there’s a diversity of thought in it to come to the best decision.”  Women surgeons, she says, “can really make a difference.”

Boston University, having merged with the Boston Female Medical College in the 1870s, takes pride in its institution’s connection to such a vanguard for academic opportunity for all students. In 1864, the first Black female physician, Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, graduated from the school and began to practice in Boston, focusing on African-American communities that had been overlooked by the medical establishment. And in the 1870s, the merged schools admitted one of the first Native American medical students in the country, Ohiyesa, from the Santee Dakota tribe.

Kaye-Alese Green, a third-year medical student at Boston University, says part of why she chose to attend Boston University was its inclusive history. She likes the fact that the school seeks to produce doctors who strive to deliver quality health care to all kinds of patients.

Medical specialties

The highest-paying specialties in the United States — such as neurosurgery, thoracic surgery and orthopedic surgery — are still primarily male-dominated, while women are more likely to choose lower-paying specialties, such as dermatology, pediatrics or obstetrics.

But even here, there are shifts occurring: In the most recent 10 years for which data is available, women’s share of neurosurgeon positions and thoracic surgeon positions nearly doubled, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Dr. Tseng is witnessing big contributions by women in the field, noting that 60% of residents in surgery at Boston University are women.

While Green, now a third-year medical student, is not yet at the hospital-residency stage of her training, she is already thinking about what specialty she will choose when she gets to that point. “I love surgery,” she says.