Advancing women in medicine: how can we move from rhetoric to action?

Advancing women in medicine: how can we move from rhetoric to action? ‘In no nation are women equal to their men.’ The words of Aparna Mehrotra of UN Women stirred many at our recent summit aimed at advancing women in medicine. Like many in our mostly female audience, my thoughts ran to the number of injustices perpetrated against women globally, including violence, denial of access to education and the freedom to choose.

But gender inequality can take more subtle forms. Women in medicine, for instance, are still facing professional and personal barriers to taking up senior roles – despite women accounting for 77 per cent of employees in the NHS. Only 24 per cent of trust medical directors are women, and in some surgical specialties only one in ten are women. The King's Fund