Mark Baerlocher and Allan Detsky report that, between 1995 and 2004, men were more likely than women to be rejected from their top-ranked discipline when applying to Canadian residency programs.1 They suggest that female residency applicants might have had a competitive edge on their male counterparts or that selection committees might have been consciously or unconsciously exhibiting bias.
Another factor might be sex-related differences in admissions to Canadian medical schools. Of the 10 957 applicants receiving at least one offer of admission from 2000/01 to 2004/05, 4554 were men and 6403 were women.2Two factors appear to have contributed to this imbalance. First, fewer men (18 277) than women (23 620) applied to Canadian medical schools over that period.2 Second, male applicants were less likely than female applicants to be granted admission: 24.9% of the male applicants and 27.1% of female applicants received at least one offer of admission.2 The net result is that female medical students outnumbered male medical students (by a ratio of 7:5) over this 5-year period.
Being outnumbered by the competitively superior and/or preferred sex suggests that men may continue to experience greater difficulty than women in acquiring a residency position in their top-ranked discipline.