Female doctors will outnumber their male colleagues in the UK by 2017 according to a new report by the RCP.

For anyone who went to medical school in the last few years this will not be a big surprise - there have been more female medical students than male for several years.

What's really interesting about this research is the effect that this shift is likely to have on resources.

"It is likely to lead to an increase in part time working. Also, women on average make different specialty choices from men" says Prof Jane Dacre in the Telegraph.

"It may be, if current trends continue, that more doctors are needed to provide the same amount of cover."

With hours already being cut by the EWTD and an increase in part-time workers expected, are we heading for another doctor shortage?

Schoolgirls do better in the A'levels so more get into medical school.

I think the feminisation of the workforce may have other potential consequences -if Russia is anything to go by, where the feminisation of the profession has changes its status.

Already in GP we are are seeing salaried positions dominated by women (yes. some women do favour part time salaried work) . However give it a few years and in GP, the disparity in earnings and professional status between male and female GPs will grow ever wider which is sad for the profession.

Kate

 At the risk of stating the obvious, our political masters don't usually "dock" our salaries (i,e, reduce them), they just don't increase them to keep up with CPI increases. This has happened with rebates for all sorts of services in Australia such as for pathology, cataracts etc. The gap gets wider and sooner or later you realise you are on a lower hourly salary than blue collar workers. 

I was recently called back into see a patient at 2am and spent three hours with her. There is no "after hours" item number for such as service. I could have charged her as a plumber would have but ended up charging the schedule fee for a hospital visit ($68.20).  I wonder what a lawyer would have charged a client for three hours down at the watch house.

The NHS sounds like a socialist's Heaven and we in Oz  as yet somewhere in Limbo. I am interested to know where all high flyers, aristocrats and blue bloods go for medical attention in the UK; surely not the NHS? 

I have four sons, three of whom have entered the workplace and all have chosen non-medicine for a career. They have seen too much and are right. 

Hi Roger,

For elective procedures and primary care there are plenty of private doctors around. There are a couple of large chains of private hospitals (BUPA, Nuffield), but for emergency care you're pretty much stuck with your local NHS hospital, no matter how rich you are. Having said that I hear from friends who have worked in posh NHS hospitals like the Chelsea and Westminster that the first question in A&E is often "would you like to go private?" as so many patients are funneled into private wards straight away.

Medicine isn't a very glamorous career for high fliers, but has that changed recently? As for money, should medical schools be taking people who want to make money and buy expensive yachts?

Wished I'd called this thread Generation XX now. Never mind.