Briefing

Only 3% of all surgical consultants (and only 1% of general surgeons) are women; difficulty in combining family and career, long hours and training, and surgery's strongly competitive ethos have been identified as the main offputting factors (J R Coll Surg Edinb 1997;42:217-8). There is a glimmer of hope: meeting same sex role models at a specially convened symposium on careers in surgery for senior female medical students had a positive effect on the number contemplating a surgical career.