Spain. The growing importance of women as healthcare professionals.

In the future, women may set the pace for stronger colleges of health related bodies in spain. the latest figures show an increase in the number of collegiate members, where women under 35 account for 2 out of each 3 new members.

In fact, the percentage of collegiate women working as healthcare professionals represents now over 40% of the total amongst physicians, dentists and veterinarians.
The growing importance of women stands out as they represent a majority across all the remaining health related colleges of professionals. Notably, amongst the segment of young people -aged 35 or under-, women made up at least 66.6% of the total that have become new collegiate members during 2009.
The following table shows the absolute figures as well as the ratios per thousand inhabitants, in 2009:

College of	Ratio per 1,000 inhabitants	Absolute figures (Nationwide)
Physicians Graduated nurses Physiotherapists Chiropodists Dentists & Stomatologists Pharmacists	4.76 5.55 0.7 0.1 0.6 1.4	219,031 255,445 33,288 5,263 26,725 63,593

Fieldwork implications

• It brings to the fore the importance of including mixed genders in all physicians and health professionals groups.
• Resources and timing required to recruit health care professionals and physicians will not vary greatly in areas such as Madrid, Aragón and Barcelona.  The ratio of physicians to 1,000 inhabitants is higher than the average in these communities (>4.39 collegiate physicians/1,000)
• From a researcher’s perspective, it may be useful to ascertain whether male and female physicians prescribe differently in Spain.

According to the latest press release of the Spanish National Institute of Statistics (INE), healthcare professional bodies have increased for the fifth consecutive year the rate of professionals per 100,000 inhabitants.