Women outnumbering men as general practitioners

Islamabad : Though medicine and surgery are considered to be bastions of male dominance in the country, the regulator is registering more women as doctors than men every year.

The PMDC's statistics show that of the 36,543 Pakistanis, who got registration certificates for their MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery) degrees between 2016 and 2018 to begin practice, 21,445 were women and 15,098 men, both local and foreign graduates.

Of them, 7,501 women and 5,257 men were registered in 2018, 7,296 women and 5,058 men in 2017, and 6,648 women and 4,783 men in 2016.

The gap is even yawning when it comes to the registration of dentists.

The PMDC also registered 4,769 women and only 1,469 men as dental general practitioners in the last three years revealing the latter’s low preference to take up dentistry as a profession.

Of them, 1,599 women and 530 men were registered in 2018, 1,701 women and 515 men in 2017, and 1,469 women and 424 men in 2016.

However, the country continues to have more male doctors than female ones though the registration gap is small.

The figures show that of the 178,592 medical graduates registered with the PMDC, 91,146 are men and 87,446 women.

Interestingly, female general practitioners outnumber their male counterparts in Punjab/Islamabad and Sindh.

As for dentistry, there are far more women in the profession nationwide than men.

The regulator has so far registered 20,993 dentists, including 14,045 women and just 6,948 men, with the gender ratio being as high as over 50 per cent in Punjab, Islamabad, and Sindh.

The sole area where women lagged behind, and that, too, considerably, is the specialisation in surgery during the last three years.

The PMDC issued registration certificates to 1,331 surgical specialists, including 1,106 men and 225 women, during the 2006-2008 period.

Of them, 379 men and 82 women were registered in 2018, 344 men and 70 women in 2017, and 383 men and 73 women.

Currently, the country has 43,181 medical specialists, including 29,171 men and 14,010 women, and 2,016 dental specialists, including 1,239 men and 777 women.

A senior member of the PMDC staff attributed the higher registration of women doctors to the higher enrolments of women in medical and dental colleges compared to men.

He said the colleges offered more admissions to women than men both on ‘open merit’ and on a quota basis, while the self-financed programme had also led to their higher enrolments.

The official said more than 17,000 students enrolled themselves in the MBBS and BDS courses in the country every year, while more than 1,000 Pakistanis having foreign basic medical and dental qualifications were being registered on an annual basis after they passed the National Examination Board examination. He said every year, a good number of doctors moved abroad, while few hundred women stopped practicing for one reason or the other.