Do male medical students face prejudice?

Abstract

There is conflicting evidence as to whether male medical students are more likely to fail examinations than female students.1McManus IC Richards P Winder BC Sproston KA Final examination performance of medical students from ethnic minorities.Med Educ. 1996; 30: 195-200Crossref PubMed Scopus (41) Google Scholar, 2Holmes FF Holmes GE Hassanein R Performance of male and female medical students in a medicine clerkship.JAMA. 1978; 239: 2259-2262Crossref PubMed Scopus (20) Google Scholar, 3Linn BS Zeppa R Sex and ethnicity in surgical clerkship performance.J Med Educ. 1980; 55: 513-520PubMed Google Scholar McManus and colleagues1McManus IC Richards P Winder BC Sproston KA Final examination performance of medical students from ethnic minorities.Med Educ. 1996; 30: 195-200Crossref PubMed Scopus (41) Google Scholar reported that men were 1·65 times more likely to fail an examination than women; whereas Holmes and co-workers found no association between sex and the examination results of medical students. I decided to gather some information to prove or disprove the hypothesis that more men than women fail final MB examinations. Between June, 1988, and June, 1997, 1413 medical students sat final MB examinations at Queens University, Belfast. 803 (57%) were men, 610 (43%) were women. 58 (4·1%) of candidates failed the examination at the first attempt, and of those who failed 48 (83%) were men and only ten (17%) were women. Surely this difference indicates that male medical students are at a great disadvantage in final MB examinations, or is it simply that female medical students are more intelligent?