Analysis of Women’s Health Representation in Preclinical Medical School Curriculum

Women’s health is an important part of medical education, however, the extent to which it is integrated into early medical school curricula remains unclear. As women’s health issues including reproductive rights and gender-based disparities in healthcare continue to be central topics of public and policy discourse, it is essential that medical education adequately prepares future physicians to address these topics. This study analyzes the presence and emphasis of women’s health topics throughout the first and second-year curricula at Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine. We conducted a content analysis of the first and second-year preclinical curricula by examining lecture content in all course blocks across multiple disciplines, including anatomy, physiology, epidemiology, and pathology. We focused on identifying instances where women's health topics, such as reproductive health, gender differences in disease presentation, and gender differences in the epidemiology of diseases. In the first-year curricula, 56 of the total 391 lectures mentioned women's health topics. Thus far 125 lectures have been analyzed from the second year curricula, and 44 of the 125 lectures mentioned women's health topics. During the remainder of the year, we will further analyze the upcoming lecture content. Women's health topics were discussed the most in the Endocrine and Reproductive block of the first-year curricula with 43 mentions. Additionally, we looked at how frequently women's health topics were mentioned by female vs male professors and the differences between women's health topics discussed in the first year versus the second year and found that of the total 100 lectures in which women’s health topics were mentioned, 38 of these lectures were taught by female professors. Our findings indicate that there is significant variability in the depth and frequency of coverage of women's health topics throughout the preclinical curricula. Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine Research Office This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2025 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.