Medicine in Canada now biased towards females?

[Guest studentz]

Affirmative action at the university level is way more prevalent in the US. You complain about bias, yet want to apply to Harvard? Ever heard of legacy? Ivies, and most private schools in the US, heavily favour kids whose parents went there or are on the faculty.

 

For everyone complaining about scholarships for minorities, can you give me a single example of one that isn't set up by the minority group itself? UofT doesn't hand out the Harry Jerome awards which are mainly for Black Canadians. I know of no university or government issued awards specifically for ethnic or visible minorities. As far as I'm concerned, it's nobody's business who a private organization gives a scholarship to. Moreover, if that organization decides that the criteria for awards at universities isn't appropriate or is systematically biased against members of its community (eg. marks vs a more holistic criteria), I say go ahead and award the scholarship based on whatever criteria you choose. Look, where do you think minority groups and organizations get most of their money from, Anglo-Canadians? Nope, from their own communities. Why shouldn't they provide awards to students from those same communities who may not get them in other ways. The same goes for any private group. It's not like they're funding terrorism.

 

Plus, there are plenty of scholarships geared towards people of various European backgrounds, go to studentawards.com and look at the list they make you pick from.

 

I draw the line at official AA policies for admissions purposes though. I think outreach programs like UofT's Visions of Science, and better/less overtly racist high school guidance counselling can help get "URM" kids interested in medicine/science at a young age. If that happens, they'll succeed. The level of systemic racism in the elementary and high school system is ridiculous though, and it does discourage kids. As does $18000 a year tuition.

 

Lastly, like Quebecboy, I'm all about the heavy female presence in our med schools.

[Guest moo]

Pot, meet kettle. You are refuting a blanket generalization with another huge blanket generalization based solely on your own experiences at your particular school. Other residency programs may be markedly different. Ours certainly is, at least in my experience with the female ob/gyn residents I've met.

 

Of course it's a blanket generalization. We form our opinions based on our own personal interactions with others. It's called anecdotal evidence. But my point is not to say all female docs are bad. It's just to refute the claim that all female docs (or most female docs) have good communication skills and are wonderful people. I picked a random sample in a random specialty. Certainly I've had no problems with most females in most other specialties. In fact, one of my female interns on medicine was one of my favorite people I've worked with this whole year.

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Why do I get the feeling certain people are posting here just to get attention? And why do two of the people posting above seem to be the only two expressing the exact same viewpoint?

 

I think some elements of this topic are worthy of discussion. Just not here!

[Guest Jochi1543]

Wattyjl, the reason I say this thread should be locked because it's simply comical to hear men complaining about them being "oppressed" on the basis of the "fact" that some women at their workplaces were "b!tchy" or that, apparently, women have an easier time getting into medical school ( I STILL have to see those McMaster stats everyone's talking about posted here for everyone's viewing pleasure). If we really wanted to talk about who's being the oppressor, we'd talk about who commits the overwhelming majority of violent crimes, who wages wars that kill millions of people (many women among them despite the fact that they are almost never involved), who abandons their children both physically and financially on a regular basis - MEN, that is.

 

All the petty comments about women being "hormonal" (oh, and let's not start talking about giant male inflated egos which I'm sure most of us have already encountered in the workplace at this point) and other ridiculous things mentioned in the thread really fade away in comparison to that.

 

I'm not gonna comment on minority issues because I'm not a racial minority and don't feel that occasional discrimination and rudeness I have encountered as an ethnic minority is worthy of being referred to as oppression.

[Guest ezaholic]

Wattyjl, the reason I say this thread should be locked because it's simply comical to hear men complaining about them being "oppressed" on the basis of the "fact" that some women at their workplaces were "b!tchy" or that, apparently, women have an easier time getting into medical school

Jochi, I think it is a gross misrepresentation to comment that men on this board are complaining about being oppressed based on the fact that some women were being b!tchy. That was a side issue that came up, but had nothing to do with men 'feeling oppressed'. The issue that has not been answered is whether if a school like Mac reversed it's selection to be consistently more males than females, whether the excuse 'we guess our application process just happens to favour males' would be accepted or if there would be a push to change it to cause 'equality'. I personally don't see how inequality fixes equality, but that is a tangent.

 

( I STILL have to see those McMaster stats everyone's talking about posted here for everyone's viewing pleasure).

The following is the link to the information you may like to view:

www.fhs.mcmaster.ca/mdpro...ection.htm

 

2005 - female:male 107:31

2006 - female:male 98:40

2007 - female:male 93:45

 

That is more than a 2:1 ratio.

 

All the petty comments about women being "hormonal" (oh, and let's not start talking about giant male inflated egos which I'm sure most of us have already encountered in the workplace at this point) and other ridiculous things mentioned in the thread really fade away in comparison to that.

Well this seems to be turning into a tit for tat. As my previous comment mentioned (it was near the beginning and this seems to be a hot topic ), it seems that females demand equality only in certain areas - seem to want the best of both worlds.

 

ez

[Guest UWOmalestudent]

^ Exactly.

 

Women today want the best of both worlds. They want the benefits of being a man, while retaining the benefits of being a woman.

 

I would be interested to here females response to the last paragraph of the previous post.

 

I would also be intersting in a female response to this question:

 

What do you think would happen in McMaster's acceptance rates were reversed, and their response was, "Oh well, men just seem to do better in the interview?"

[Guest CareBear15]

This whole posting reminds me of why sometimes I have distaste for the career I chose.

Physicans are supposed to be "professionals" and be role models in society. We are supposed to advocate for equality, fairness and justice for our patients and for ourselves. Would you discriminate against a poor patient? Would you discriminate against a female patient? I hope your answer is NO and then it that case we shouldn't have to be discussing the male/female ratio and whether females can contribute as much as a man to the medical profession. Take a look at medical history, there have been males and females alike who have contributed greatly to the profession!!

The main reason why I say that sometimes I have a distaste for medicine is because the application process is unfortunately flawed and sometimes the people who really deserve to get in don't and then you have b*stards like "UWOmalestudent" who somehow weasel their way in and make us lose faith in humanity.

[Guest UWOmalestudent]

^ Your comments extremely unbecomming of a physician. If you were to speak that way in the hospital, you would be severely repromanded.

 

As a physician, it is your ethical and moral duty to not show any sign of discrimination, which you are doing to me now.

 

My comments can be backed up by statistics, while yours cannot. The 'b*stards' you describe getting in are people like yourself.

 

Women who work part-time and retire in their mid-fifties when menopause occurs are taking the spots of men who work until they are in their seventies. Surely a woman who cares about everyone like you claim can see why females are inferior physicians to males.

[Guest mephistopheles0003]

Are you judging how useful a physician is by the number of hours he/she puts in? Whatever happened to quality vs quantity?

 

Or how about our service to the greater community as just plain-old human beings? Maybe spending time with your kids or your family or doing something outside of medicine makes you a better doctor by reminding you what made you get into medicine in the 1st place. Then again, perhaps this does not apply to those who only want meds for $$$.

[Guest UWOmalestudent]

^ Tell that to the 1.5million Ontarians, and 4million Canadians without a family physician, and see what they have to say.

 

If there were only male physicians, or mostly male physicians, there would be no physician shortage. That is a FACT.

[Guest Gexar]

Although UWO is pretty confrontational I would have to agree with him on that one............

[Guest peachy]

Women who work part-time and retire in their mid-fifties when menopause occurs are taking the spots of men who work until they are in their seventies.

I find it unlikely that most female physicians retire "when menopause occurs". Is there a statistic that you're referencing here, or did you just make that up?

[Guest Madz25]

Didn't an earlier post state that more females go into family medicine? If so, then aren't females helping to relieve the physician shortage situation in Canada?

 

In your first post you stated "I don't want to turn this into a big flame war or anything." It seems to me that you have done just that and your follow up posts add fuel to the fire.

 

You wanted honest feedback about people's experiences regarding the so-called bias and many have given you just that. What more do you want? To convince everyone that your opinion is the right one? Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and that's all it is, AN OPINION.

 

If you're discouraged from staying in Canada and attracted to the US, then GO! Nobody here is going to stop you and you don't need to convince anyone here of your reasons.

 

This thread is clearly going in circles. People have already answered your original query so why continue to push the subject and have the same arguments stated again and again and again and again?

[Guest hammermill]

Oh it's so funny. UWOmalestudent, I know who you are in real life. I've just realized it from the way you write...3.98 (hehe). Stop annoying people just cause you think you're annonymous. You just simply have too much time to waste huh!

 

:rollin

[Guest Ollie]

Does anyone else think that Gexar is UWO's alter ego?

[Guest marbledust]

Women today want the best of both worlds. They want the benefits of being a man, while retaining the benefits of being a woman.

 

There are benefits to being a man? Really? What are they?** :lol

 

This thread is really getting silly...I think UWOMaleStudent will lose interest in it very soon...

 

**Marbledust is NOT a man**

[Guest linkinpark]

END

[Guest strider2004]

Tell that to the 1.5million Ontarians, and 4million Canadians without a family physician, and see what they have to say.

 

If there were only male physicians, or mostly male physicians, there would be no physician shortage. That is a FACT.

 

Actually, if you check the CaRMS site you will see that the majority of people choosing family medicine are females. Males tend to lean more towards surgery, anesthesia, radiology. If you want more family physicians, you should let in more females. That's a FACT.

[Guest UWOmalestudent]

Hello hammermill,

 

Do I know you? Oh and please keep the flames coming as I need entertainment when I'm bored. Let's continue to play guess my identity. Feel free to private message me if you think you know who I am.

 

If you get it right, I'll send you a cookie.

 

Even if nobody wants to admit it, I think anyone can see that medicine in Canada is biased towards females.

[Guest wattyjl]

wrt to UWOmalestudent's comments:

 

i don't get why people are still arguing with this guy?

 

look up the definition of internet troll: he is pushing buttons on purpose and is not looking for a rational discussion/debate on this subject.

 

there is absolutely no point in trying to be rational with him - that's not how trolls work. it's all a big joke. the only effective way to get rid of trolls is to completely ignore them. if you want to continue the joke, go for it, but otherwise there is no purpose in responding to his comments in this thread.

[Guest UWOmalestudent]

^ Hello

 

I find your comments to be extremely offensive and assure you, I would like to hear all people's points of view.

 

Please post something constructive in this topic.

[Guest UWOmalestudent]

BUMP

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Oh it's so funny. UWOmalestudent, I know who you are in real life. I've just realized it from the way you write...3.98 (hehe).

 

The funny thing is this would not be the first time a troll's identity was discovered. Actually, I think most of the trolls who stuck around here long enough eventually ended up being discovered at some point.

 

These boards are often not as anonymous as advertised.

[Guest UWOmalestudent]

OH NO!

 

Someone knows who I am in real life.

 

My life is over.

 

I am dropping out of university and becoming gay like Francophone.

[Guest studentz]

I don't agree with a lot of what has been said by UWOmale and some others here, but I do agree that if Mac's number were reversed people would have been banging down the doors at Queen's Park demanding an end to sexist admission policies a long time ago. That size of M/F difference, in favour of males, could never be maintained for so long in this society. People at Manitoba went to pains to point out that this years class is an anomaly.