Medical profession is known to be increasingly feminized. Indian women have outnumbered the men in admissions to medical collages. The trend has been continuing for past few years. India has produced over 4,500 more female doctors than male doctors. In our country, 51 percent of students joining the medical collages is women. The trend it not different in other parts of the world; our neighbors, Pakistan and Bangladesh, have much more proportion of women, 70 percent and 60 percent respectively, graduating from medical collages. Bur studies reveal that only a small portion of medically graduated women are practicing. According to reports of Lancet, only 17 percent of all allopathic doctors are women. A gender gap of 51.1 persists at post graduation and doctoral levels. The leaderships in academics and administration is also dominated by men.

Surveys show that family pressure is making most of the women peruse general medicine instead of specialization and practice in private clinic. India is lagging much behind when considered the feminization of the health sector globally. Globally, 75 percent of the most of the workforce in health sector are women. But most of the women are nurses, midwifery personals or other caring cadre rather than doctor, surgeon, physician, pediatrician or managers. However, feminization of the medical profession is making a huge marginal change. It is reflected and recorded in countries such as Bangladesh, Canada, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Israel, Mozambique, Oman, UK and the US.

In this issue, the Women Entrepreneur magazine brings into spotlight a list of 'Top 10 Women in Hospitals - 2021' who are torchbearers of success in the health sector. The list has been crafted by a team of CEOs, VCs and the Women Entrepreneur editorial team, thus delivering inspiring stories of their journey and the contributions & roles played by them in the creation and empowerment of a powerful nation.