Women paid less than men

The line in the Helskinki Compaint Choir that I love is, "women are still paid less than men." Yes, you're hearing this tidbit slipped into the anti-McCain campaign ads, too. It's a ploy to get women voters, although they are pretty much in the tank for Obama anyway. Yes, more appealing to the victim mentality. No wonder Sarah Palin was a breath of fresh air!

I've written more than once on this myth, even using my own experience when I went to my boss and complained, only to find out the other woman (a minority) had an additional degree, and the guy--well, he had asked for more in his job interview, which means we started out at different levels, levels on which our promotions and merit pay were built.

The September 10 issue of JAMA is all about medical education. After they get their school loans paid off, and practice loans under control, most doctors do quite well. So, how are women doctors doing? I didn't see anything about salaries, but the specialties women enter as compared to men are certainly revealing.

According to Appendix II, "Graduate Medical Education, 2007-2008" compiled by Sarah Brotherton and Sylvia Etzel, women are collecting in certain areas of medicine. A wild guess here, but these are fields that are not among the highest paid, but probably offer more flexibility in scheduling to accomodate family needs. If they start to whine in 20 years, I hope someone refers them to this article. And the male doctors need to watch out too--because if they choose a specialty dominated by women, their own incomes will go down. Sorry, folks, I didn't write the rules, I just live by them. Here's some areas of specialty where women are more than 50%. Keep in mind, some of these programs are quite small--if transplant hematology only as 3 people, and 2 are women, they have 66.7 of those slots. Also, you'll notice a preponderance of women in the areas of family and children, from OB/GYN, to peds, to geriatric.

allergy and immunology, 56.1
pediatric anesthesiology, 54.6
dermatology, 63.8
pediatric emergency medicine, 74
family medicine 54.4
geriatric medicine 58.7
endocrinology, diabetes, metabolism, 67.4
rheumatology, 58.3
transplant hematology, 66.7
medical genetics, 59.4
molecular genetic pathology, 58.3
neurodevelopmental disabilities, 87.5
obstetrics and gynecology, 76.7
blood banking/transfusion medicine, 70.3
cytopathology, 65.6
pediatric pathology, 62.5
pediatrics, 72.8
pediatric rheumatology, 75.4
pediatric rehabilitation, 75
psychiatry, 54.3
child psychiatry, 59.3
psychosomatic medicine, 66.7
a number of combined specialties included children
all with high representations by females

Also, it looks like most of tomorrow's abortion doctors will be women.