In some medical specialties in the United States, women and minorities are still underrepresented, say researchers who suggest more diversification could mean more equal quality of health care.
As it stands, the lack of women and minorities may be worsening inequities and disparities in health care, they say.
"Continued efforts are needed to increase the diversity of the physician workforce in the United States, particularly in the specialties with the lowest representations of women, blacks or Hispanics," they say in their study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
Their study found that, although women accounted for a majority of graduate medical education (GME) trainees in some specialties in 2012, the numbers of minority trainees in any specialty was not comparable with the percentage of these groups in the U.S. population.
This despite the fact that "minority physicians continue to provide the majority of care for underserved and non-English speaking populations," says study researcher Dr. Curtiland Deville of Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University.
He noted that medical universities have actively attempted to expand the diversity of incoming students in hopes that might translate to more diversity in their eventual chosen specialties.
Still, he says, the study found that in some specialties, such as orthopedics, radiology and otolaryngology, there remains "disproportionate underrepresentation of women and minorities."
In 2012, 30 percent of the more than 680,000 practicing physicians were women, while just nine percent were members of underrepresented minorities, including five percent Hispanic and four percent black, the researchers reported.
There were some specialties in which women trainees were in the majority, including 82 percent in gynecology and obstetrics and 75 percent in pediatrics.
They were also a majority in family medicine, psychiatry and pathology.
Despite those increases, representation remained largely unchanged in other specialties, Deville says.
Experts said the study was significant.
"It calls to question if we need to be doing more research to figure out why women remain predominantly in three specialties, family medicine, pediatrics and OBGYN," says Marc Nivet, chief diversity officer for the Association of American Medical Colleges.
He says he wonders if it's based on personal choice or if they are somehow being relegated to those fields, or not receiving encouragement to go into other specialties such as surgery or orthopedics.
"Is there gender bias at play?" he asks. "A minority or a woman shouldn't look at a particular field like orthopedics and say, 'Well, that's not for me.'"
