Women are fast overtaking men in student numbers at South Africa's medical schools, but their failure to specialise has serious implications for the future of health service delivery.
When they do specialise, their top three choices are psychiatry, paediatrics and obstetrics, leaving potential for a shortfall in the more "difficult" specialities the men traditionally choose, including medicine and surgery.
This so-called "feminisation of medical schools" is examined in a Human Sciences Research Council study by senior researcher Dr Mignonne Breier.
She focuses on the University of Cape Town medical school where she says that in the five years from 1999 to 2003, the university has seen an average of 40 percent men to 60 percent women admitted as undergraduates.
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These numbers, according to Breier, are "a cause for concern, because of their potential impact on provision of services in the medical profession".
Quoting Professor Gonda Perez, former acting dean of UCT's faculty of health sciences, Breier says the proportion of females has since risen further to 65 percent.
The faculty is concerned, and is attempting to correct the balance by looking for male applicants.
Breier quotes Perez as saying that it would be "problematic if medicine became a female-only profession".
"Women would inevitably leave it at some stage, if only temporarily, to have babies, therefore there have to be males in the profession, particularly as there is a need for men in certain specialities," she said.
Breier also says the proportion of women who graduate falls short of the proportion who enrol.
Of 800 UCT medical school graduates between 1999 and 2003, 55 percent were women and 45 percent were men.
"Since males formed 40 percent of the enrolments, and women formed 60 percent, the proportion of male graduates (which translates into lower 'graduation rates' for women) could indicate that male students are performing better," Breier says in the document.
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