Women in medicine: past, present, and future.

Women now constitute 14% of all physicians in practice and are concentrated in the primary care specialties. Thirty-five percent of all medical students are female, and their numbers are increasing yearly. Female physicians frequently combine career and family, and the average woman physician has one child during residency and one child in the early years of practice. Maternity leave, therefore, is a common concern among women physicians, three fourths of whom are less than 45 years of age.