Your next doctor could be a woman

As a male physician, it might surprise you that I would advocate patients to seek female physicians. But when you see the research, you may wonder if your next doctor should be a woman or at least, what your physician could learn from his female counterparts.A

More Women in the Medical Field

Medicine was once male-dominated profession. When I was a medical student (1973-1977), my class of over 250 had less than 10 women. In 1975, there were about 35,000 female physicians in the United States. By contrast, in 2012 this figure grew to over 321,000 women doctors (31% of all physicians). This increase in women physicians will likely continue, since women comprise almost half of US medical students and 45% of all residents and fellows in training.

Women physicians now practice across the country, and in most specialties.This is also an international trend of more women entering medical practice as they gain equal status with men, especially in western countries.

Should your next doctor be a woman?

There have been generally positive findings as woman have become a bigger portion of practicing doctors. In addition, female physicians may have a unique opportunity in their relationship with their female patients. Women make the majority of healthcare decisions within a household, and therefore studies showing a better understanding of the medical needs of women patients by women doctors may benefit the whole family. In addition over 70% of the non-physician healthcare workforce is female, as are more than half of patient caregivers. As a male physician, I will tell you that I sometimes struggle to understand and relate to their caregiving needs and qualifications.

Unfortunately, as part of the national trend of violence directed toward health careworkers, 30 percent of women doctors (compared to 4 percent of men) said they had experienced sexual harassment in their professional careers.

As in other sectors of the economy, women doctors make significantly lower incomes than their male counterparts. Ironically, this is due to women physicians spending more time with each patient, as much as 10% more. As Dr. Kevin Pho, who comments on trends in US medicine in his popular blog has said:

So, even though women may work the same number of hours as their male counterparts, they’re likely to see less patients during that time.  And since physician compensation is still mostly based on fee for service or productivity-based incentives, women doctors are going to come up short on compensation scale.

What Male Physicians Can Learn From Female Physicians

The situation in which women physicians find themselves is both a lesson and a warning to male physicians. Patients, especially women, usually report a better experience with doctors who listen, educate, collaborate and spend more time, which is more common in younger medical school graduates, especially women. But by spending more time with patients, female physicians are financially penalized by seeing less patients during the day.  As Dr. Pho says, "it’s another reason why we need to change the way doctors are paid, and reward them for spending time with patients, instead of penalizing them."