Veterinary schools turn increasingly female

Surge tied to flexibility, attractiveness of field

By Sarah Schweitzer

Globe Staff | August 22, 2007

Recruiters from Tufts University's Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine recently fanned out to Massachusetts schools, looking for future vets. They hunted for top students and those with an aptitude for working with animals. They paid particular attention to boys.

But when 25 high school students arrived this month for a two-week stay at Tufts's Adventures in Veterinary Medicine camp, all but four were girls.

"People do say it's a girly field," said A.J. Guerra, 15, of Stafford, Conn., who said he wants to be a small animal vet. "My dad is a nurse, and people say that's girly, but so what? I love animals."

The program's radical gender imbalance reflects a broad trend in the veterinary profession. While just 5 percent of veterinary students were women in the 1960s, today 79 percent of the seats at the nation's 28 veterinary schools are occupied by females. The ratio is more dramatic at some schools, such as Tufts, where last year 89 percent of its first-year class were women; at Michigan State and University of California-Davis, 88 percent and 81 percent, respectively, of the incoming classes are women.

This year, for the first time, the number of practicing women veterinarians nationwide is equal to the number of practicing males.

There is little research to provide an explanation of the trend, but theories abound. The practice of veterinary medicine is considered more flexible and less time-intensive than some other professional fields, making it attractive to women who hope to have families. It pays, typically, less than fields such as human medicine, law, and dentistry -- a factor that some say makes it unattractive to men who generally expect to be a home's sole breadwinner.

Another theory is that women have been drawn to the field, and men have left it as it has transformed from one focused on large farm animals, valued for their practical use, to one that predominantly cares for pets. Many veterinarians now are expected to care not only for animals but for feelings of pets' owners.

"It's hard for guys to be so openly compassionate to fuzzy animals," said K.C. Horigan, 25, of Scituate, a woman in her second year at Tufts veterinary school.

Aziz Chughtai, 28, a third-year student at Tufts, said, "There is the expectation in our society of females being more nurturing, and so they may be more open to a profession that has that as a core requirement."

But, he added, "I do think that men, as a species, are just as capable of it."

The predominance of women entering veterinary medicine is a remarkable reversal from just four decades ago when women struggled to gain admission to veterinary schools. It is also a departure from some other science fields -- like engineering, computer science, and human medicine -- where men continue to outnumber women in most degree programs.