Ten Facts About Women In The Field Of Oncology

On Friday, March 8th, the world will mark International Women’s Day (IWD). Around the world, the healthcare sector relies heavily on women. In Canada, more than 80% of the country’s 1.4 million healthcare workers are female, according to Statistics Canada, with almost one third of workers coming from BIPOC communities, despite BIPOC people making up just over a quarter of Canada’s population.

This year’s theme for IWD is “Inspire Inclusion”. In honour of IWD, here are ten facts about women in the field of oncology:

1. Over the past few decades, women in Canada have made substantial gains in participation in the medical profession overall: today, 42.7% of the country’s practicing physicians are female, according to the most recent data from the Canadian Medical Association (CMA).
2. Gender parity was reached by all medical schools in Canada in 1995. In the United States, 2017 marked the first year in which more women (50.7%) than men entered medical schools. As of 2020, women represented 34% of practicing U.S. physicians. (Cool fact: The country with the highest percentage of female physicians is Bosnia & Herzegovina! For the full list, click here).
3. In 2022, there were 96,020 physicians in Canada. Nearly half (49.7%) of family medicine physicians are women, according to a 2024 report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information. This is good news for people with complex illnesses like cancer. According to research conducted by the CMA, women physicians usually spend about 10% longer with patients and communicate more effectively, resulting in 6% fewer visits per patient. According to the CMA findings, women also tend to emphasize preventive medicine more than their male colleagues, allowing for earlier detection and intervention. (See page 9 of the CMA report, Addressing Gender Equity and Diversity in Canada’s Medical Profession: A Review).
4. In Canada, the medical oncology workforce has nearly reached gender parity, with 46% women in 2020 versus 25% in 1994. And from an education perspective, 34% of medical oncology trainees in Canada were women in 1994, compared with 63% in 2020, according to a study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
5. There are also more medical oncologists in Canada than ever before, and there will be even more women over time with the higher percentage of women in medical school. In 1994, there were 161 medical oncologists; in 2020, there were 642. Not surprisingly, the largest proportion of the country’s medical oncologists (34% in 2020) and medical oncology trainees (49%) are in Ontario, with a significant portion training at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre.
6. However, just 33% of surgeons in Canada are women, versus 42% of medical specialists. Of course, we need both types of doctors, as well as other healthcare workers, for treating cancer. But for many cancers, surgery is the main treatment. Moreover, surgery can also be used to improve a patient’s quality of life. For example, surgery can get ride of pain caused by a cancer that’s pressing on a nerve or bone, or it can be used to remove a cancer that’s blocking the intestine. At The Princess Margaret/UHN, we have a world-renowned team of 60 surgical oncologists who perform about 5,000 cancer surgeries a year. You can meet some of our surgeons! Check out this video of Dr. Tulin Cil, the Gattuso Chair in Breast Surgical Oncology at The Princess Margaret, and this video of Dr. Gelareh Zadeh, Senior Scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and Head of Neurosurgery at Toronto Western Hospital.
7. Despite substantial gains in participation in the medical profession, a recent survey by the American Society of Clinical Oncology notes that although women make up 36% of the oncology workforce in the U.S., they account for only one-fifth of full professors and one-third of department leaders, with the percentage of women among authors in major oncology journals sitting at 20-30%, according to a 2022 study published in Frontiers in Oncology.
8. The underrepresentation of women in academic oncology is a growing concern. The authors of a 2021 study published in JAMA Network Open note that while enrollment of women in U.S. medical schools has now surpassed that of men, women represent only 35.9% of academic oncology faculty, including 37.1% in hematology/oncology, 30.7% in radiation oncology, 38.8% in surgical oncology, and approximately 50% in pediatric hematology/oncology. And from a leadership perspective, women are particularly underrepresented, occupying 31.4% of the chair positions in medical oncology, 17.4% in radiation oncology, and 11.1% in surgical oncology. In short, the data suggests that while women are as likely to pursue careers in academic medicine and have similar research productivity compared with men, they are less likely to be promoted or appointed to leadership roles; they also leave academia at a higher rate than men.
9. Dr. Augusta Stowe-Gullen was the first woman to graduate from a Canadian medical school, graduating in 1883 from the Toronto School of Medicine. She was the daughter of Dr. Emily Stowe, Canada’s first female practising physician.
10. Gender equality remains the greatest human rights challenge facing the world. And cancer stands to be the greatest health challenge facing the world, with over 35 million new cancer cases predicted in 2050, a 77% increase from the 20 million cases in 2022. Both these challenges are inter-connected. The reality is that the care economy, and many of its innovations, depends on women. From the discovery of radiation in 1902 by Marie Currie and her husband, who stumbled upon the first effective non-surgical cancer treatment, to the use of chemotherapy, for whom the world must thank Dr. Jane Cooke Wright, the highest ranking African American woman at a nationally recognized U.S. medical institution, women have been transforming standards of care for cancer patients for over a hundred years.

Finally, at The Princess Margaret, Dr. Vera Peters was an oncologist who graduated from medical school in the 1930s. When she began her career, Hodgkin’s lymphoma was thought to be incurable. There was little that physicians could do except provide a terminal prognosis. On the other hand, the treatment of breast cancer involved substantial intervention. Before Dr. Peters, 98% of women with breast cancer were treated with radical mastectomy, a physically and emotionally difficult procedure. Today, the impact of Dr. Peters’ legacy is clear: Hodgkin’s lymphoma is one of the curable adult cancers as a result of her research in radiation therapy, and conservative treatment for breast cancer is now the status quo after Dr. Peters published the first controlled study in the world (in 1975!) demonstrating that lumpectomies followed by radiation therapy produced equal, or better, outcomes for breast cancer patients than radical treatment procedures.

Millions of lives have been saved and changed for the better because of Dr. Peters and other women in cancer research, education, and care – at The Princess Margaret and elsewhere – all while women also continue to provide most of the paid and unpaid acts of caregiving to people dealing with cancer. As we look to IWD, we know that investing in women is a human rights imperative and a cornerstone for building inclusive, and healthier, societies. At The Princess Margaret and across UHN, we also recognize that progress for women benefits cancer patients of all genders, across Canada and around the world.