Women doctors for women patients?

Abstract

This review concentrates on two main areas: (i) the attitudes of women patients towards physicians and (ii) the attitudes of physicians towards female patients. Women are important users of the health care services. There is female to male ratio of 3.8:3.0 for the average number of consultations in general practice per person per year. Women are prescribed more drugs than men; in 1974 66 per cent of women and 54 per cent of men had at least one drug prescribed. Physician gender is thought to have an effect through the physician-patient relationship and its outcomes. Patients perceive male and female doctors differently. Women patients believe women doctors to have the good qualities of both male and female physicians, e.g. assertiveness and initiative but also tenderness and nurturance. There is some evidence that women doctors give their female patients more surgery time than is allocated to them by male doctors. In the specialty areas, preference for a female gynaecologist is stated more often than a preference for a female doctor in any other specialty. The attitudes of physicians of both sexes towards female patients is seen by some as negative; however, physicians as a group are more 'feminist' than control groups. Some women GPs are seeing up to 85 per cent female patients.