BMJ  2005;330:363 (12 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7487.363

Letter

Academic medicine: who is it for?

Data on sex are important for the development of academic medicine

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Reichenbach and Brown point out the need to build an evidence base to start discussion of gender issues in academic medicine.1 The Medical Women's Federation strongly supports this recommendation.

It is particularly striking that the recent report from the Council of Heads of Medical Schools, which detailed a worrying decline in the numbers of clinical academics in the United Kingdom over the period 2001-3, contained no data on the male:female ratio of clinical academics.2 Given these serious concerns about the current and future clinical academic work-force, together with the current demo-graphy of medical schools,3 I think that it would be extremely helpful to have background data on the sex of clinical academics. This would help to ensure that universities are drawing on the widest possible pool of talents, or if they are not, to consider what if any further action is required.

Selena Gray, president

Medical Women's Federation, London WC1H 9HX selena.gray@btopenworld.com

Competing interests: SG is president of . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Gender and academic medicine: impacts on the health workforce
Laura Reichenbach and Hilary Brown
BMJ 2004 329: 792-795. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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