Abstract
Abstract Today the number of women studying medicine is 65%. This is a high number compared to earlier times. In this study I wanted to know a little more about how women experienced their time at the university. Two different generations were interviewed with qualitative interviews. First I interviewed 3 women studying during the 1970s, and then 3 women studying during 2010s. The women were asked questions about why they chose to study medicine, whether they had other alternatives, if their choice was affected by others, if they experienced stress or competition related to being a woman, how it was to combine children and a relationship with the studies, what were the subjects they found the most interesting and what specialty they planned to pursue. In conclusion I found that the motives differed between the two generations. The older generation focused more on getting a good job, while the younger wanted to help others, work with people and have a meaningful job. No generation of women in the study experienced stress related to being a woman at the faculty, and none of the women in the studies experienced competition between females and males. The older generation was more critical towards the study and described a lack of education in communication skills, a passive teaching style and no female role models. The younger generation was more satisfied. The ones with children found it easy to combine that with the education. Stable relationships were easy to combine with studying, while instable relationships were a source of stress for both generations. Finally, I found that women from both generations were interested in many subjects during the education, but many seemed to end up in a limited field of specialties. This is in spite of the fact that both generations experienced that women were more ambitious and had better results in exams than men.