Women now account for 34 percent of practicing physicians in the U.S., whereas only 7 percent of medical school graduates in 1966 were women.

Despite this shrinking gender gap, biases remain among patients and even other medical professionals, wrote Dhruv Khullar, MD, MPP, in The New York Times. And female physicians still shoulder most of the childcare and household responsibilities, leading to a greater likelihood they are overworked or develop depression.

“This unequal distribution of domestic labor is not unique to medicine, of course, but its manifestations are particularly acute in a physically and emotionally demanding profession with a lengthy training process that allows few, if any, breaks,” Khullar wrote.

The women who complete this process earn less, are more likely to cut back on work hours to accommodate household responsibilities and are less likely to be called “doctor,” both by patients and male colleagues introducing them at formal academic lectures, according to the article.

“I wear a white coat; I introduce myself as doctor,” said Theresa Williamson, MD, a neurosurgery resident at Duke. “But patients still assume I’m a nurse or medical assistant or pharmacist. If there’s a man in the room—even if he’s a medical student and I’m the doctor—he’s the one they make eye contact with, tell their story to, ask questions of.”

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