Women in Australian and New Zealand Psychiatry: The Fat Lady Sings

Abstract

Gender disadvantage within the professions significantly affects the development of women doctors, resulting in morbidity and less than optimal development. Paradoxically, for a profession primarily concerned with the study of the vicissitudes of human development, psychiatry in Australia and New Zealand has yet to articulate those issues which bear directly upon the development of its own members. Systemic problems are identified within the institutions of medicine and psychiatry which compromise the development of both female and male trainees and which must concern medical educators. Recommendations are made concerning the structure and content of training programmes, most particularly post-graduate psychiatry.