More Women in Med School

              Tri.7Dec.31. 1982
MEDICAL BEAT
More women
in med school
When the LSU Medical Center School of Medicine
launched its first class in 1969 it had only one
woman" student. Today it has 23.
Twelve years ago, only 15 or 20 women even ap-plied
-for admission, said Dr. William T. McElroy.
For the'l982-83 academic year, 180 of the 605 appli-cants
were women, reported the associate dean for
student admissions.
This reflects a nationwide trend. The number of
women entering medical school continues to grow,
according to the Journal of American Medical As-sociation.
The trend is noted in the AMA's 82nd annual re-port
on medical education in the United States, to
which a December issue of the Journal is devoted.
For the 1981-82 academic year, there were 5,343
women in the entering class, a 7.5 percent increase
over the preceding year and representing nearly 31
percent of all entering students.
According to the Journal, this was more than
three times the percentage of women entering
medical school in 1969, when enrollment of women
in medicine began to rise.
Of all medical students enrolled in the 1981-82
academic year, 18,555 were women, reported AMA.
Of the 15,985 graduates, 3,991 were women.
McElroy said 20 of these were graduates of LSUMC
School of Medicine.
Overall, the number of students enrolled in U.S.
medical schools during the 1981-82 academic year
increased just 1.5 percent over the previous year, ac-cording
to the Journal.
There were 66,485 medical students enrolled in
schools across the country in 1981-82, up from
65,497 in the 1980-81 academic year. First-year en-rollment
increased by less than one percent.
These total enrollment statistics included 403 stu-dents
at the LSUMC School of Medicine, up from 390
the preceding year, though not because the school
had increased its entering enrollment.
McElroy explained that the medical school can
accept 100 entering students per year, but until five
or six years ago it accepted only 96 first-year stu-dents.
The 1980-81 class was one of the last smaller
classes graduated, he said.
The number of applicants here was 602, up from
573, according to McElroy. The number accepted
and enrolled was 100.
The total number of minority students enrolled in
medicl schools in 1981-82 was 9,303, of which 21
were blacks enrolled here. McElroy the number of
blacks seeking admission has increased over the
past five years, though it is still under 40 a year.
The AMA report came out as LSUMC School of
Medicine was interviewing applicants for the
1983-84 academic year. McElroy said the medical
school's pool of applicants has held "pretty steady"
up to now, but there are signs that it may be lower
for the next term.