Why Are Women Underrepresented in Cardiology?

When I was an intern many years ago at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, the only women working there were nurses, secretaries, technicians, and a small cadre of nursing school administrators. All the doctors and all the physician trainees were men. Less than 10% of the students in my Harvard Medical School class were women. The system has evolved dramatically since then; currently, 49.9% of US medical students are women.1 In fact, at the two campuses of the University of Arizona College of Medicine, 54% of medical students are women.