By Eric Raicovich

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The Question of Discrimination in Medical Schools

• By Eric Raicovich
• 4/24/03

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Background Information
The 1970s experienced a large increase in the
number of females being admitted into medical
school, why?
The facts
1929 4 of those admitted to med school were
women
1970 11 were women
1984 33 were women
Can you explain this phenomena?
Sex-role socialization
Direct discrimination from medical schools
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The Walsh Hypothesis
Mary Roth Walsh Doctors Wanted No Women
Need Apply Sexual Barriers in the
Medical Profession, 1835-1975 (1977)
the central proposition that this book advances
is that the medical establishment made a
conscious effort to minimize the number of women
physicians (pp. xvii-xviii).
So (according to Walsh) why the increase during
the 70s???
Lawsuits
Title IX legislation Equal opportunity
amendment passed condemning discrimination in
education
Was Walsh correct in her hypothesis? Lets look at
the data...
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Women Applicants
Observe the sudden increase. Upon first glance,
we would think that there must have been some
sort of catalyst explaining the sudden boost in
women applicants? Was it the direct result of
Title IX? Lets look at more data.
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The number of male applicants, although larger
than the female pool, still seems to share the
increase in applications in the early seventies.
This is the first bit of evidence against Walshs
hypothesis.
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The discrimination index is a numerical figure
which explains to what extent women were
discriminated against per year. A positive number
indicates discrimination against women and a
negative number indicates inverse discrimination.
What can you infer from this graph?
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Individual Schools
(a bit more evidence...using confidence intervals)
Observe the table on your handout
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Confidence Intervals
The standard deviation for each year gets
progressively lowerwhat does that mean?
Is there evidence that schools are not being
discriminatory towards women? How can we be sure?
95 CONFIDENCE INTERVAL
If 0 falls within the confidence interval that we
get, then we have evidence that does NOT support
Walshs hypothesis, and in fact, there is NO
discrimination occurring.
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Calculations
95 CI for µ of 1967
0.521286
So the confidence interval for 1967 is between
0.041286 and -1.001286. In this year, zero does
fall in the confidence interval so we have
evidence for no discrimination in medical school
admissions.
Using the 95 Confidence Interval formula, see if
there is evident in support of discrimination or
against it in 1977, the last column. Do you think
there will be a trend?
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Answer
You should have gotten 0.371923 for an answer.
Since the mean is -.17, 0 does fall within this
confidence interval, following the trend in 1967.
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Correlation
The correlation between the proportion of male
applicants admitted and the proportion of female
applicants admitted to each of the school was r
.85 and in 1977, .96
Is this a strong correlation?
Yes. Because r is so close to 1, the strong
correlation means that there is no discrimination
against either males or females.
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From the data presented, it does not seem that
the low number of women applicants was due to
discrimination by the medical schools themselves.
What are some of the reasons for disproving
Washs hypothesis?
In the early half of the 1900s, women were
discouraged from entering the medical profession
because it was an occupation that seemed
unreasonable for them.
There was a slight increase in the mid 1940s due
to World War II. After the war was over, the
number of female applications declined,
particularly during the 50s because there was an
emphasis on women going back into the home.
Conclusion