Women now make up just over half of all Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) graduate school enrollees in the U.S. and earned more than half of all science and engineering bachelor’s degrees between 2004 and 2014, according to analysis from the American Enterprise Institute.

Mark J. Perry, an AEI scholar and professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan-Flint, has been studying gender gaps in various aspects of society for years, and has a new report out using various data sets to show that women are not underrepresented in STEM — at least when it comes to education.

“In fact, according to several measures, women are actually slightly over-represented in STEM graduate programs and earn a majority of STEM college degrees,” Perry wrote. But, he cautions, a lot of the conclusions depend on how one defines STEM. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, he cites, says the “definition of STEM can vary, depending on the group using it.”

Perry took data from the Council of Graduate Schools and included its “Health and Medical Sciences” classification as a STEM field. Doing so found that 50.6% of grad students enrolled in STEM programs in 2017 were women, even though women were only the majority of enrollees in two classifications: “Biological and Agricultural Sciences” and “Health and Medical Sciences.” Still, far more women were enrolled in health sciences than either sex in any of the other fields.

Another chart compiled by Perry, based on data from the National Science Foundation, shows that women accounted for more than half of all science and engineering bachelor’s degrees awarded between 2004 and 2014. (Read more from “What Gender Gap? Women Are Now Majority of Stem Grads” HERE)

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As America focuses on one epidemic — the opioid crisis — another goes entirely ignored. American health-care workers are dying by suicide in unprecedented numbers. Earlier this month, a medical student and a resident at NYU medical school completed suicide less than a week apart.

My junior colleague took her life just 11 days before her 35th birthday. I had supervised her as she transitioned into practice from fellowship. She said that the way I said her name foretold if the conversation pointed to a weakness or a strength in her patient assessment. My last sight of her was as she drove off to her new job. Less than six months later, she made a life-ending choice.

A scan of her suicide note, asking that I be notified, was emailed to me. I did not show it to anyone. The news of her suicide was announced by an email in the department. We all went about our business, as if suicide by a young colleague is usual. And perhaps, in a way it is.

After all, physician suicide — and more broadly health-care worker suicide — is a huge issue in the U.S. In my own experience, I have lost six colleagues to suicide — five physicians and one physician assistant. That does not include the suicides that I have heard about through the whisper network at work.

My junior colleague was among an estimated 400 physicians who took their lives in 2016. Many physicians know more doctors than patients who have taken their lives. Physicians and nurses complete suicide more often than do average Americans; rates are even higher for women in both professions. Respect, fear and love for our colleagues often leads us to list the cause of death differently on death certificates. We frequently self-medicate, so suicides may instead be listed as accidental. Phrases to describe the scope like “an entire medical school class a year” or “a doctor a day” have particularly ominous meanings for physicians. (Read more from “Health Workers Commit Suicide in Unprecedented Numbers” HERE)

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