Patient Gender Roles Essay

Gender Roles Effect on Patient’s Perception of Physician: Male Competency vs Female Instinct This paper discusses the dominance of male doctors in healthcare and the struggle of female doctors to be perceived as intellectual equals. Topics include the up rise in female reputation, perception of both sexes in a healthcare setting, an empathetic female approach and why men and women may choose the opposite sex for medical treatment. Provided information will allow patients to gain a new perspective about their own gender specific preferences and focus solely on quality of care. Gender roles have played a large part in many aspects of society. Outdated, yet traditional, interpretations identify the male to be the “money maker” and a female’s place as “in the kitchen.” We learn from The End of Men that “earlier this year, women became the majority of …show more content…
Rosin’s argument implies that women are hard-wired to be caregivers, “…women are programmed to find good providers and to care for their offspring, and that is manifested in more-nurturing and more-flexible behavior, ordaining them to domesticity” (Rosin 60). Perhaps this ideal of the caring mother is finally starting to play to their advantage. In Beyond Credentials: The Effect of Physician Sex and Specialty on How Physicians Are Perceived the authors reference studies that have shown that patients of female physicians generally have a greater overall feeling of satisfaction after treatment (Noori and Weseley 266). While males may not hold the vote for the most empathetic care, “studies have demonstrated that adults rated female physicians as less competent and less experienced than male physicians” (qtd. in Noori and Weseley 276). Sex differences in medico-legal action against doctors: a systematic review and meta-analysis correlates the relationship between male sex and poor performance in