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| Author | Dr. T Melillo MD |
| Abstract | Over the past 15 years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of Maltese female medical students graduating. However despite this, the number of female doctors reaching the upper echelons of medicine remains very low. Many are having children during their years of postgraduate training. This suggests that having children slows down career progression. A quantitative questionnaire will be distributed to a sampled number of males and females doctors working in different specialities in the state hospital, Health department, polyclinics and general practitioners. A qualitative study will be done by means of a focus group with a small number of Maltese female doctors who felt forced to stop working with the Health department because their working conditions did not give them adequate time for child rearing. A semi-quantitative questionnaire will be sent out to all the Directors in the Health Department and all the Heads of Departments to obtain their opinions and suggestions regarding balancing female career progression with child rearing. It is expected from the results, to determine the reasons why female doctors with children are not succeeding to progress in their career, if there are differences between the priorities of male and female doctors, who is more responsible in child rearing, if the working environment and framework is responsive to the needs of pregnant doctors and female doctors with children. Recommendations will then be made on how to enable female doctors to continue pursuing their career in medicine while still devoting enough time to child rearing. |
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