TUESDAY, Nov. 7 (HealthDay News) -- The proportion of men entering general obstetrics and gynecology practice in New York State sharply declined over a five-year period, researchers report in the November issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Susan E. Gerber, M.D., M.P.H., of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, and a colleague compared the proportion of women and men who graduated from residency programs and pursued subspecialty training in New York State between 1998 and 2003.
The researchers found that 5,007 residents in internal medicine, 1,820 in pediatrics and 737 in obstetrics and gynecology responded to the survey. While the proportion of graduating male obstetrics and gynecology residents dropped to 23 percent from 46 percent, those graduates who trained for a subspecialty went up to 25 percent from 5.3 percent.
Female obstetrics and gynecology residency program graduates also showed an increased, though more limited, interest in subspecialization, with the rate rising from 4.3 percent to 18.5 percent during the study period. There was no change for male internal medicine graduates.
"As the proportion of men entering Ob/Gyn residency programs declines, the number of men entering general Ob/Gyn is declining at an even more dramatic rate," the authors conclude.
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