Research Article

What Can We Say About Gender Discrimination in Medicine? A Limited Research From Turkey*

  • İlknur Genç Kuzuca
  • Berna Arda

Received Date: 26.08.2010 Accepted Date: 25.10.2010 J Ankara Univ Fac Med 2010;63(1):1-8

This article has been devoted to be answered the question of “are there any sexist approaches lead-ing to discrimination based on gender in the degrees of specialist and academician in medicine in Turkey?” Study design consists of a quantitative and qualitative research. Authors have aim to bring up the data on this subject by examining the figures of the institutions where a vast majority of the doctors have been employed. In order to bring up the discrimination present related to sexuality in the distribution of the doctors, and the reasons of this discrimination, authors tried to evaluate the quantitative and qualitative data together by doing partly organized interviews with the doctors from various groups. When the gender distribution of the doctors is examined according to their speciality field, it has been shown statistically that the male and female doctors have been distributed in definite special-ized fields, and in this sense there has been a discrimination based on sexuality. It is ascertained that almost all of some specialization fields have been comprised of male doctors. While male doctors are represented by 34 % even in the specialization field of most of the female doctors, the female doctors are represented by 1-2 % in the specialization field of most of the male doctors. The rate of female doctors in the twelve fields of specialization of twenty-eight fields exam-ined is below 33% which is accepted as the critical sill. Moving from this result, while it can’t be said that there is a specialization field for women, but contrary it is possible to say that there are some specialization fields in medicine for men. The women take place in the departments where protec-tive medical services are given with less financial income; they are less popular but are the kitchen of the work in basic medical science.

Keywords: Gender Discrimination, Medical Specialties, Glass Ceiling, Woman Studies, Turkey