Women a 'threat' to medical field

[freelancewriter]

This is one of the more unusual stories I've read lately:

"Women a "threat" to medical field - top doc"
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=24&art_id=vn20040804052730958C814095

It's an article about physicians in Britain. Here's the first two paragraphs:
"The medical profession is in danger of losing its power and influence because too many women are scaling its ranks, according to the FEMALE (emphasis mine) head of Britain's most influential royal medical college.

The astonishing warning was made by Professor Carol Black, president of the Royal College of Physicians and only the second woman to hold the post in the college's 500-year history."

My interpretation of the article is that she's saying (for better or worse) that males are respected more than females. If the medical profession becomes dominated by females it will lose status as well as financial and political power.

"I would like to see equal numbers of male and female doctors. I think it makes for a more natural balance," she said.

Thought provoking...

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[Trismegistus4]

My interpretation of the article is that she's saying (for better or worse) that males are respected more than females. If the medical profession becomes dominated by females it will lose status as well as financial and political power.

I don't think that's quite the main point; look at the last paragraph:

Women doctors were equal to or better than their male colleagues in ability, but their need to meet family commitments made it more difficult for them to rise to the top of the profession, said Black.

Women are more likely to go into careers with lower pay and lower prestige, both in exchange for the opportunity to have more of a family life and because (I know I'll be flamed for this) it's more in their nature to be willing to accept some degree of subservience and not push for dominance; they mostly don't have a sense of pride that's going to be hurt by taking a job making $25k/year working with little kids, and in fact may prefer to do so because of the caring nature of the work.

Some of this gets carried over into professions which have not, historically, incorporated women, when women begin to go into those professions in large numbers. In medicine, law, business, etc., women are more likely than men to push for flexible working arrangements and part-time work, much more likely to take a large chunk of time out of the middle of their lives, in what would otherwise be prime career-building years, to stay home with children, more likely to come in late/leave early because their kids were sick or needed a ride to soccer practice, and, because of chivalric instincts which are part of our human nature, are more likely than men to have this behavior accepted. In medicine, female doctors, having become partners in group practices, are much more likely to switch to part-time practice than male doctors. Women also tend to be more cooperative and "team-oriented," at the opposite end of the spectrum from the old stereotype of the hard-nosed, arrogant surgeon.

If you're only in 3 days a week and it's no secret that you leave early on Tuesday because of Caitlyn's soccer games, and you shy away from the "I'm the doctor and what I say goes!" attitude, of course you're not going to wield the power and prestige medicine used to have.

 

[notstudying]

Interesting that this is from a South African website and newspaper, rather than British. I would want to verify the quotes with the source before relying on the attributions, and make sure they weren't taken out of context.

 

[freelancewriter]

Interesting that this is from a South African website and newspaper, rather than British. I would want to verify the quotes with the source before relying on the attributions, and make sure they weren't taken out of context.

Good point. You'll find variations of the article in quite a few British news outlets:
http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en...24&art_id=vn20040804052730958C814095&filter=0

including the generally highly regarded BBC News:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3527184.stm

Trismegistus, thanks for your interpretation. I must confess that I prefer it to my own. The BBC version drives home the idea of balancing work and family moreso than the original one that I cited.

 

[Retinamark]

Anyone who does part time medicine, whether male or female, usually won't be as good as someone who does it full time. There are exceptions of course, but on average, the more clinical experience someone has, the better they are. If I needed sugery, or needed a clever physician, I would never go to a part time physician - they just don't have the breadth & depth of experience to see enough rare conditions.

That's not sexist, the same goes for a male who works part time.

 

[freelancewriter]

Anyone who does part time medicine, whether male or female, usually won't be as good as someone who does it full time. There are exceptions of course, but on average, the more clinical experience someone has, the better they are. If I needed sugery, or needed a clever physician, I would never go to a part time physician - they just don't have the breadth & depth of experience to see enough rare conditions.

That's not sexist, the same goes for a male who works part time.

Hadn't really thought about it that way. As you pointed out, there are exceptions. I probably agree that I wouldn't go to a part time surgeon, but...

...my wife and I are choosing to switch pediatricians from a full-time, very experienced (30+ years in practice) physician to a part-time (about 5 years in practice) physician. The part-time pediatrician spends the rest of her day at home with her kids. There's something about having a "mom" as a pediatrician that both my wife and I find appealing.

Her husband is a full-time physician. I don't have any actual statistics to site, but I'm guessing that many of the part-time physicians out there have a spouse who is also a physician. (In some cases they job-share, both working part time.)

If the scenario of part-time physicians having spouses that are also physicians is quite common, I'm guessing they talk shop at home a lot. Some would call that continuing medical education, and they may keep more current than the "average" doc.