{"id":667966,"date":"2026-05-27T11:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T11:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/667966\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T11:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T11:49:11","slug":"female-doctors-quit-medicine-at-higher-rates-than-men-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/667966\/","title":{"rendered":"Female doctors quit medicine at higher rates than men. Why?"},"content":{"rendered":"

But the problems for female doctors aren\u2019t confined to a few fields. A recent paper<\/a> published in The Journal of General Internal Medicine finds that women are significantly more likely to quit practicing medicine than men, a disparity that holds true at every age, and across specialties.<\/p>\n

Among doctors who leave the profession, women exit at age 49, on average, while men leave at 64. And women tend to be about 40 percent more likely to leave medicine than men.<\/p>\n

Lisa Rotenstein, a coauthor of the paper and the director of the Center for Physician Experience and Practice Excellence at Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital, emphasizes that \u201cwe have really good research that female physicians have better outcomes than male physicians in many circumstances,\u201d including for hospitalized<\/a> and surgical<\/a> patients. But, she notes, female physicians also have higher rates of burnout.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just an epidemic. It\u2019s a pandemic,\u201d says Dr. Amy S. Gottlieb, a Boston-based consultant specializing in fair pay strategy. <\/p>\n

And Rotenstein says it\u2019s important to remember that many women have been in residency until their early or mid 30s, so \u201cthat\u2019s many years of care provision that we are losing from really, really good doctors.\u201d It also means that many women are missing out on what could be their most powerful \u2014 and lucrative \u2014 years in medicine. <\/p>\n

So what\u2019s driving them away?<\/p>\n

Gottlieb, who has advised hundreds of female physicians during her career, says a chunk of it is about pay. Lots of women have told her that \u201cthe guy coming out of the same residency program \u2014 or maybe the same speciality in a different residency program \u2014 into the same job is being paid more. Literally, there\u2019s no justification for it.\u201d Often, says Gottlieb, the woman is making 10 or 20 percent less than the equally qualified man.<\/p>\n

A 2021 study<\/a> found that during the course of a 40-year career, a female physician could expect to earn about $2 million less than a male physician. The largest earnings gap was in surgery (a $2.5 million gap), while primary care physicians had just under a $1 million gap.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, as more women have entered pediatrics over the last few decades, compensation for pediatricians has declined, relative to many other areas of medicine. Some of this, Gottlieb says, is because our compensation structure tends to reward specific procedures, while pediatricians tend to spend more time talking to their patients and trying to understand their lives holistically.<\/p>\n

But the inequities are not just financial. Every doctor I interviewed says both colleagues and patients expect more of women than they do of men.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.Dr. Cornelia Griggs, a pediatric surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital.Jonathan Wiggs\/Globe Staff<\/p>\n

\u200a\u201dI\u2019ve always been aware that there is gender bias in medicine, specifically in surgery,” says Andrea Merrill, a breast surgeon in Charlottesville, Va., who collaborated on a recent paper with Griggs. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t quite realize it could profoundly affect and even threaten my career.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she was an attending physician, Merrill got \u201csome criticism from some of the nurses that I worked with. And it was, I think, taken to the extreme by my leadership. I feel like the criticism was mainly because I\u2019m a woman.\u201d She says she was described as condescending and bossy \u2014 \u201cthe things that women who are strong and assertive often get told.\u201d Since then, she has counseled many women who have had similar experiences, some of which have threatened or ended their careers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistorically,\u201d says Griggs, \u201cif a male surgeon is operating and someone has brought out the wrong set of instruments, or they don\u2019t have one of the tools that he asked for, and he\u2019s grumpy and critical of the team, then [the team is] going to make damn sure that they have it right the next time. That dynamic doesn\u2019t always play out the same way for women surgeons. Really demanding women surgeons often get mean labels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Female doctors report feeling that both their patients and their co-workers expect more from them. \u201cWe sort of have to bend over backwards to be super friendly,\u201d says Merrill. <\/p>\n

Gottlieb points out that \u201cthere\u2019s so much data and research on how women doing the exact same thing are evaluated more harshly than their male colleagues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apart from money and double standards, there\u2019s also the issue of flexibility. Griggs says she sees some doctors working 80-hour weeks, which contributes to burnout. \u201cI have a friend who is a pediatric endocrinologist, and she went to work for a pharma. And she\u2019s making more, working fewer hours, and has the flexibility to say: \u2018OK, I need to go pick my kid up.\u2019 . . . She went from feeling like she was pulling her hair out every week to feeling sane and valued and respected.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Greater Boston, particularly, a high concentration of biotech and pharmaceutical jobs can offer an attractive alternative pathway for physicians. <\/p>\n

Karen Leitner, a primary care physician and pediatrician, largely left the practice of medicine in 2014 because of burnout. After having children \u2014 including one with a health issue \u2014 she tried to balance caretaking and a demanding job. \u201cI just felt like it was too much for me to manage. I was thinking about work when I was home. I was thinking about home when I was at work.\u201d <\/p>\n

Leitner saw large numbers of patients, tried to respond to their electronic messages, and faced \u201cdifferent expectations\u201d than a man, she says. She subsequently founded a coaching firm to help women physicians weather the medical system.<\/p>\n

\"KarenKaren Leitner is a doctor who now runs her own business coaching female physicians, many of whom feel burned out. Suzanne Kreiter\/Globe Staff<\/p>\n

Female doctors describe a culture that to them feels broken. Few people are actively trying to do the wrong thing, but the cumulative effect of the system is to squeeze women out. Within medicine, this offers a real \u2014 and urgent \u2014 opportunity for reform.<\/p>\n

\u200a\u201cI think we have to build systems and environments where women are seen and heard and respected and feel they have support,\u201d says Dr. Olivia Liao, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society. <\/p>\n

In some environments, Liao has seen doctors wear special tags noting that they\u2019re physicians. \u201cSo that we\u2019re not mistaken for nurses. And I don\u2019t think that happens to the males.\u201d <\/p>\n

At the end of the day, Liao says, “\u200aWe are seeing more women in leadership positions. And that\u2019s what\u2019s going to drive this [reform] forward.”<\/p>\n

Gottlieb, who frequently works with medical leadership teams, says there\u2019s no easy fix to such a multidimensional problem. But she exhorts leaders to just \u201cstart somewhere and do something. Look at starting salaries out of training. Look at how you\u2019re incentivizing the workforce.\u201d <\/p>\n

Griggs, the pediatric surgeon, said she loves her job, but cautions, \u201cif we want to continue to recruit some of the brightest minds, the most talented, empathetic, altruistic individuals into this field, we have to convince young people that it\u2019s still a wonderful field to go into.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kara Miller is the host of the podcast It Turns Out. Send comments to kara.miller@globe.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But the problems for female doctors aren\u2019t confined to a few fields. A recent paper published in The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-667966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}