PMDC Registering More Women Than Men

The yawning gap between the number of women and man
Islamabad, July 11: If the number of medical and dental graduates registered by the Pakistan Medical & Dental Council (PMDC) over the last one-and-a-half years is anything to go by, then women continue to be on the march.

From January 1, 2008, to June 30, 2009, women kept alive the years-old tradition of securing more PMDC registrations of MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine & Bachelor of Surgery) and BDS (Bachelor of Dental Surgery) degrees than men. Of the 10,651 general practitioners registered during the said period, 5,128 were female doctors while 4,228 were male, and 872 were female dentists with 419 male ones.

The yawning gap between the number of women and that of men passing the final examinations of medical and dental courses becomes clearer through a look at the breakdown of figures, which reveal that PMDC issued MBBS registrations to 1,998 women and 1,762 men between January 1, 2008, and June 30, 2008; 1,159 women and 973 men between July 1, 2008, and December 30, 2008; and 1,981 women and 1,493 men between January 1, 2009 and June 30, 2009.

As for BDS, 280 women and 166 men secured PMDC registration of their degrees between January 1, 2008 and June 30, 2008; 266 women and 85 men between July 1, 2008 and December 30, 2008; and 326 women and 168 men between January 1, 2009 and June 30, 2009.

However, the sole area where women lagged behind, and that too considerably, is the specialisation in medicine and surgery during the last one-and-a-half years. According to the latest PMDC statistics obtained by 'The News', of the 2,389 registered surgeons of medicine and surgery during the period, the number of men was much higher than that of women - 522 men and 284 women between January 1, 2008, and June 30, 2008; 496 men to 213 women between July 1, 2008, to December 31, 2008; and 565 men to 309 women between January 1, 2009, and June 30, 2009.

If the statistics are monitored closely, one will be surprised to know that currently the country has more female dentists than male ones. However, the medical side of the profession continues to be the male supremacy bastion.

Of the 8,945 registered dental practitioners, 4,649 are women and 4,296 men. In Sindh, 1,900 women hold the license to practice dentistry but the number of male dental licensees is relatively low (1,242). The situation is no different in Punjab and the federal area, where female dentists outnumber male dental practitioners (1,863 to 1,730). However, there are more male dentistry licensees than women.

As for the 115,063 nationwide medical practitioners, 67,164 are men and 47,899 women. The statistics put the number of medical specialists in the country to 22,370. Of them, only 22.7 per cent (5,083) are women against male medical specialists, totalling 17,287. The number of female dental surgeons spells out even more disappointment, as of the 561 registered dental surgeons, just 21.39 per cent (120) are women, while 441 are men.

When contacted, Hina Shokat Kiyani, the PMDC spokeswoman, said many doctors and dentists, without fulfilling the mandatory requirement of getting themselves registered with the PMDC, practice at private clinics and hospitals. She said every year, a good number of doctors move abroad and a few hundreds stop practicing for one reason or the other.

According to her, private and government medical and dental colleges offer admission to over 7,000 students every year. She said the ratio between available health facilities and the population has improved over the years and so has the number of doctors, but the internationally accepted ratio of one doctor for 1,000 patients is yet to be met. She said currently, only one doctor is available for 1,310 patients, suggesting that the country requires producing more doctors. Hina said the availability of a dentist to the population is much dismal, as there is just one dentist for 25,107 people.