More Girls Dream of Being Doctors; is It ‘Grey’s’ Sway?

Call it the Grey’s Anatomy effect. “Doctor” is the leading career choice of today’s teenage girls, according to a recent poll by Junior Achievement Worldwide and Verizon.

Of 1,500 students ages 13 to 19, the proportion of girls who cited doctor as their ideal job was 10 percent – up from 8.3 percent in 2004, when the girls’ top response was “businesswoman.”

This year, business ranks third among girls; teacher is second. Boys’ top career choices are businessman, 14 percent; professional athlete, 9.4 percent; and computer field, 7.8 percent.

Darrell Luzzo, the senior vice president of education for JA Worldwide, attributes girls’ piqued interest in medicine to Grey’s Anatomy.

“We saw a similar effect in 2004 when The Apprentice was very popular during its first season,” he said. “It was the only year that businessperson was the top career choice of girls.”

Doug Coffman, the medical director of the emergency department at St. Anthony Hospital in Oklahoma City, can’t say whether it’s the Grey’s Anatomy effect. But he has seen more women wanting to go into emergency medicine since the TV show has been on the air.

“I think it’s a good thing,” Mr. Coffman said.

Through shift work in the emergency department, women are finding they’re able to balance a career in medicine and still have families, he said. Women, he said, also bring an intrinsic compassion to their work.

Grace Strickland, a senior at Christian Heritage Academy in Del City, Okla., is considering a career as a doctor after shadowing in the emergency department at St. Anthony.

“I used to be so afraid to watch ER,” she said. But through job shadowing, Ms. Strickland has found she likes medicine, relating to patients and helping them with different symptoms.

One of her best friends also is thinking about become a doctor. Two others want to be a pharmacist and physical therapist.

Stacie Pennington, a community specialist in nursing education at Integris-Health, applauds her friends’ varied interests.

“A lot of students come in aspiring to be neurosurgeons or pediatricians. But when they hear about nurses and other health care professionals, and see what they do, many change their minds,” Ms. Pennington said. “They realize they (nurses and allied health professionals) are really the ones who spend the most time at patients’ bedsides.”

At the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, more women are applying and being accepted, said James Schmidt, the associate dean of student affairs. Forty-one percent of this year’s first-year class of 162 are female.

Officials are happy about more women in medicine, Mr. Schmidt said.

“We want patients to have choices,” he said.

More female patients, for example, are asking for female obstetricians/gynecologists.

(c) 2007 Augusta Chronicle, The. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.