Will Female MDs Bring Women’s Touch to Healing? : Some dismiss the notion as a stereotype; others say growing numbers mean changes.
Patients often complain that their doctor is distant, lacks empathy and is unwilling to listen to them for longer than 10 seconds. Is it possible that the rapidly growing number of women physicians may help correct an impression set largely by a male-dominated medical profession?
By the year 2010, the American Medical Assn. projects that 30% of all doctors will be female and the majority of them will be family practitioners. More women are assuming policy roles in private and government medicine. Both the surgeon general of the United States and the director of the National Institutes of Health are, for the first time, women.
No study has yet proved that female doctors are better at tending patients’ nurturing needs than their male counterparts, who long have been criticized for their bedside manner. But there is a growing interest in exploring what kind of impact the increasing presence of women in medicine will have on patient care. Will they create a softer, gentler environment in doctors’ offices? Or does the nature of medical training overwhelm the influence of gender? Does the female stereotype jibe with what a doctor is supposed to be, or does bearing and raising children impair professional performance?
One study shows that women physicians spend more time with patients--17 minutes compared to men’s 13 minutes. A survey by MD magazine found that most women doctors are convinced their practice style is different from men’s, although most male doctors disagree.
Female family practitioners tended to order more services and generated higher patient costs than did male practitioners, another study found. Part of the reason was a greater use of counseling and psychotherapy services. Authors of the study speculated that while the initial patient costs were higher, the counseling may lead eventually to less cost to the health system and greater patient satisfaction.
Nevertheless, women doctors (on the average younger than males) frequently say that they know as many empathetic male doctors as female ones. And they admit that some women are as uncommunicative with patients as some men are. They deplore the “paternalistic” attitude of some colleagues of either sex, usually older ones.
“I don’t see it in younger doctors,” says one young female doctor.
Says Dr. Ruth Hoppe, who teaches communicative skills at Michigan State University Medical School: “Older doctors did not benefit from courses now given at medical schools to teach how to communicate with patients clearly and with sensitivity. The older model was authoritarian and patients played a passive role.”
Many male doctors seem to mistrust female colleagues on grounds that they often lessen their workload in order to take care of family needs and consequently appear to be less committed to medicine. This is said to be one reason male doctors refer patients less frequently to female doctors. For patients, a shortened workweek means it’s more difficult to reach the doctor.
But many internists and family practitioners fear that even the most compassionate doctor will be unable to afford spending the time many patients desire unless payment programs value such care more highly.
When all the studies have been completed, the bottom line will be that it is just as difficult to generalize about female doctors as it is about male doctors, says Dr. Nancy Dickey, a Texas general physician and a trustee of the American Medical Assn.
And, says Dr. Bernadine P. Healy, director of the National Institutes of Health: “Be careful not to stereotype doctors based on gender. Medicine is a brain-driven enterprise, not a muscle- or gender-driven one. Women have the same range of intellectual and emotional dimensions as men. But, in addition, they bring an option to patients who are more comfortable with female doctors or who perceive women as being more motherly and sensitive.”
Growing Presence
While the total number of practicing MDs has nearly doubled in the last 20 years, the number of female MDs has quadrupled.
‘70 Total MDs: 334,028 Female: 25,410 (7.6%) ’80 Total MDs: 467,679 Female: 54,284 (11.6%) ’90 Total MDs: 615,421 Female: 104,194 (16.9%)
Source: American Medical Assn.
