Female medical students currently outnumber their male counterparts, but this was not always the case. In the United States, there were actually no women physicians until well into the 19th century, with the first woman graduating medical school in 1849 after being rejected from 10 other schools due to her refusal to disguise herself as a man to attend. Now, women total a little over half of the medical student population, according to the AAMC.
To learn more about how women have changed the medical field, and to check out an interactive timeline, read the full article here: Breaking Barriers: A Timeline of Women in Medicine.
