Helping women physicians stay could ease the pressure on general practice

The conditions that could help women physicians build long and rewarding careers already exist, but they are routinely undermined in everyday practice, according to a new review led by the University of Surrey.

Published in the British Journal of General Practice, the review brings together evidence on what helps women physicians thrive at work, at a time when general practice is under serious strain. GP appointments have risen by 14% since 2019, and around a third of physicians say they plan to leave the profession within five years. Women make up more than half of the GP workforce, which makes keeping and supporting them a priority for patient care.

The review found that women physicians value spending longer with patients, asking about feelings and circumstances as well as symptoms, and that they find this kind of care meaningful. The same work, though, comes at a cost. Women physicians tend to attract more complex appointments, including mental health and women’s health, because patients expect them to be more empathetic and understanding. That extra time is rarely recognized or rewarded, which lengthens their working hours and raises the risk of burnout.

Drawing on 72 documents (peer-reviewed research and policy documents), the researchers identified the conditions that help women thrive, including social support, flexible scheduling, mentoring, positive role models and time for high-quality interactions with patients and colleagues.

In practice, these conditions sit alongside forces that pull the other way, such as gender-based mistreatment, unequally shared workloads and career development that happens outside contracted hours. The review also found that the evidence base leans heavily on women adapting their own circumstances, through part-time working or reshaping their roles, rather than on changing the system around them.

Dr. Ruth Abrams, associate professor at the University of Surrey and principal investigator of the study, said, “What stands out is that women physicians often find the most demanding parts of the job, the long and emotionally complex consultations, the most meaningful. The trouble is that the system treats this work as invisible. We keep asking individual women to adapt, rather than asking why the conditions that would help them thrive are so easily undone.

“There is no shortage of ideas about what helps, from flexible scheduling to mentoring and supportive teams. What is missing is a shift in responsibility. Helping women physicians thrive cannot be left to women alone. It needs employers, the NHS and regulators to act, because retaining this part of the workforce matters to every patient who needs an appointment.”

Women physicians also face one of the worst pay gaps in medicine, and the review notes that part-time working is often neither acknowledged nor valued, even though part-time physicians can end up working full-time hours given the intensity of the role.

Dr. Victoria Williams, research fellow at the University of Surrey and co-author of the study, said, “Women make up more than half of all physicians, yet much of the evidence still frames their well-being as a personal problem to solve. Our review tried to turn that around, looking at what the wider system can change so that more women can build long and rewarding careers in general practice.”

The team identified clear gaps in the evidence, including how ethnicity, disability and neurodivergence shape women physicians’ experiences, how reproductive health is supported at work, and the experiences of women physicians who are childless or child-free.

The authors recommend that a committee, led by organizations including Local Medical Committees, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the British Medical Association and the Medical Women’s Federation, be set up to push for the policy changes needed to support women physicians.

Speaking of how the committee could work, Abrams said, “This committee, if established, needs to lobby for workforce sustainability, fairness and productivity to be addressed through system design, not individual resilience. Practically speaking, this might look like exploring the possibilities for: mandating flexibility as a workforce standard; reforming workload measures; introducing fairness-first workload frameworks; investment in career development and leadership pathways; and measuring and evaluating equity and well-being impacts.”

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Gaby Clark

MA in English, copy editor since 2021 with experience in higher education and health content. Dedicated to trustworthy science news.

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Andrew Zinin

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