Anandi Bai
Read the passage given below carefully.
1.The first Indian woman physician Anandi Bai Joshi graduated in 1886. Starting from that single figure, about 125 years later, Indian women have started to outnumber men in admissions to me colleges and the trend continues to grow stronger by the year, particularly over the last five ye during this period, India has produced 4500 more female doctors than male ones.
2. In India women constituted 51% of the students joining medical colleges, cornering 23,522 seats in 2014-15, compared to 22,934 men. This increase is in keeping with the worldwide trend. In fact, in the neighbouring countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, there are much higher portions of women in medical colleges, with figures standing at 70% and 60% respectively.
3. Paradoxically, there is a serious shortage of female doctors in India. According to the medical journal Lancet, only 17% of all allopathic doctors and 6% of those in rural areas are women. This is less than one female allopathic doctor per 10000 populations in rural areas, whereas the ratio is 6.5 in urban areas.
4. According to a paper on women in medicine published in the journal ‘Indian Anthropologist’ by sociologist Dr Mita Bhadra, the gender gap persists at the post-graduation and doctoral levels. The percentage of women doctors here is around one-third of male doctors. She also observed that positions of leadership in academics and administration are still mostly occupied by men.
5. In Pakistan, though 70% of medical students are women, only 23% of registered doctors were female because a large number of those who graduated never took to practising. The picture is no I different in Bangladesh where 3164 female doctors graduated as compared to 2383 male doctors, 2013. The trend of more women joining the medical profession is welcomed in all these countries as female doctors are seen as committed and caring. This difference in numbers in the profession vis-a-vis women graduating has led to several studies being carried out. A paper on women in medicine published by Dr Rakesh Chaddha and Dr Mamta Sood of the psychiatry department of AIIMS noted that medicine has been a male-dominated profession because it demands long working hours that are disadvantageous to women who, even today, struggle to juggle career and family responsibilities.
6. Earlier, though women were largely restricted to fields such as obstetrics, gynaecology and paediatrics, this is changing now. There has always been a preponderance of women in pre-clinical subjects like anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry and paraclinical subjects like pharmacology, pathology and microbiology, right from the ’70s. However, when a department is headed by a woman, the percentage of women in the faculty goes up. In departments headed by women the women faculty was 49% as compared to just 19% in those headed by men, says Dr Chaddha, giving the example of the neurology department at the AIIMS, which saw a lot of women faculty joining when the HOD was a woman. ‘It is probably because the head of the department becomes a role model and more women are encouraged to join,’ said Dr Chaddha.
7. There are skews within the medical profession in most parts of the world with some medical specialities, such as surgery and other disciplines requiring emergency duty with irregular hours being male-dominated. Even in the United Kingdom, though women account for 56% of those opting for medical education, 49% are public health and only 8% are surgeons, according to a Royal College 1. of Physicians expert.
8. Among the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries (OECD), across ten of them, predominantly from the erstwhile Eastern Bloc, the proportion of female physicians is more than 50%, ranging from a high 73.8% in Estonia to 50.2% in Spain. In two non-OECD countries, Latvia and Lithuania, females accounted for over 74% and 70% of physicians. In contrast, only one in five doctors in Japan and Korea were women. In the United States, it is one in three, confirming the fact that the disproportion among women and men doctors is a universal phenomenon.
(I) On the basis of your understanding of the passage answer the following questions with the help of the given options:
(a) In 125 years, the number of female doctors has outnumbered male doctors by—————–
(i) 4000 (ii) 4300
(iii) 4500 (iv) 2383
(b)The women joining the medical profession in Pakistan and Bangladesh ——————–
(i) is much lower than the figures in India
(ii) equal to women doctors in India
(iii) growing faster than doctors in India
(iv) higher than figures in India
(c) There are fewer women in medicine because ————————
(i) it is a tough line
(ii) it demands long working hours
(iii) women do not enjoy this field
(iv) women are discouraged by their peers in this segment
(d) The number of women physicians in Lithuania is————————-
(i) 70% (ii) 74%
(iii) 50% (iv) one in three women
(II) Answer the following questions briefly.
(a) What distinction does Anandibai Joshi hold?
(b) What is the paradoxical situation regarding women doctors in India?
(c) Why is the trend of women joining the medical profession welcomed?
(d) Which areas of medicine are considered to be para-clinical studies?
(e) What is the finding of the Royal College of Physicians expert regarding women doctors?
(f) What are the finding regarding OECD countries?
(III) Find words from the passage which mean the opposite of the following.
(a) self-evidently (para 3)
(b) rejected (para 5)
Ans. (I) (a) (iii) 4500
(b) (iv) higher than the figures in India
(c) (ii) it demands long working hours
(d) (i) 70%
(II) (a) Anandibai Joshi is the first woman to graduate in medicine in India. She graduated in 1886.
(b) Despite a higher intake in medical colleges, there is a serious shortage of women doctors in the profession.
(c) Women joining the medical profession are welcomed because they are considered to be more caring and committed.
(d) The areas of pharmacology, pathology and microbiology are considered to be para-clinical studies.
(e) The finding of the expert was that in the United Kingdom though women account for 56% of those opting for medical education, 49% are public health and only 8% are surgeons.
(f) In OECD countries, erstwhile Eastern Bloc countries have a higher proportion of female physicians, whereas in Japan and Korea the figure stands at 1:5 and in the United States at 1:3.
(III) (a) paradoxically
(b) welcomed
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