Am I the only Women who doesn't like to see a Women Doctor?

[MiniTheMinx]

I have been thinking about this for some time. I have often read that women like to see women doctors and of course for some this is tied in with religion and culture, for others maybe a history of abuse or a reasonable expectation that only a women would really understand the inner workings of women, whether it be gynea or even emotional/psychological problems.

However I have to date always had problems with women doctors.

I have come to the conclusion that some women who lack power, authority or autonomy under male domination seek to impose authority over other women. From my experience this happens when there is a perceived weakness such as illness.

I wondered if women really do empower themselves by oppressing other women because they feel so helpless themselves?

I really don't agree with that Narked (speaking as a woman doctor, of childbearing age, who also interviews for junior staff). I experience it as a level playing field.

So we are now to think that medicine is perhaps very enlightened and perhaps the only industry that doesn't discriminate on the grounds that women may take time off for maternity leave. It would be nice to think it is but I have met very few women consultants.....I think that speaks volumes about the ethos of a full time, no career breaks male centric culture.

Where I work nearly all the female consultants, including myself, have taken time off for maternity leave and there have been no problems about that. I think the relative lack of female consultants is more to do with women's lifetsyle choices rather than discrimination. I work in a unit with seventeen consultants, six are female.

'Lifestyle choices'

Not everyone is suited to the life of a consultant (the hours, the level of responsibility and stress, the on-call committments etc). That goes for both sexes but it seems women do find it on the whole less attractive. I wouldn't judge anyone for that. It suits me (well, my particular job suits me) and presumably the other women I work with, but I can see how it would not be for everyone.

It is a lifestyle choice for our family, I work, my DH does not. I spend most of my time working and I make a good living. He does childcare, cooking and lots else around the place. The rest of the housework etc is done by a nanny and cleaner, paid for by by my work. That's our choice of lifestyle at present. No-one has forced us into being this way, it's how we wnat it right now.

I'm a woman doctor, training in hospital medicine. Agree that consultant hiring decisions are very nearly gender-blind, and the NHS appears very benign towards us as women compared to many other employers. A few months' maternity leave, when you are young and still learning the ropes anyway, is small beer compared to 25 years of hard graft working for a NHS Trust. (The maternity leave issue can be a bigger problem for female GP partners, but that's another story).

Yes, the specialities with anti social hours (often more prestigious too) are still rather male dominated with often very macho, inflexible cultures, and women tend to vote with their feet as theDudesmummy implies. But many other specialities, often with less acute/out of hours work (but not always - eg paeds), are now actually female-dominated at consultant level. In my own happy, friendly speciality it's probably about 50:50, which is nice.

It's not all about hiring decisions, of course: there are many other, more subtle issues affecting woman consultants that can make their lives harder, but most of those relate to society as a whole, not a problem of the NHS as such.

Mind you, you have to remember the consultants do not hold the power in the NHS, not really. Consultants just deliver the service. That word says it all: towards patients, we really do consider ourselves servants; it is hard for us to imagine actually setting out to oppress the people we are trying to help.

Amongst ourselves doctors can be intensely competitive. Any consultant who really wants to go on a power-trip will be seeking out the real positions of power and influence. These positions - eg senior Trust positions, royal college positions, research professorships, deans of medical schools, learned society presidencies, writers of reports for the Govt and influencers of policy at national level - are still very much the domain of the "old white men".

Fully agree with WrongbutWromatic. I really truly not not belive that there is a gender bias in cosultant appointment panels (well certainly not in my speciality anyway).

If I really wanted power I would not be doing what I do but would seek positions as a clinical or medical director, with the Royal College etc. What I choose to do is actually look after patients. Of course I have clinical freedom to a degree but as said above, we work within the NHS power structure and a lot of what we have to do is fully dictated by NHS policies. There's not much real power in it, apart, hopefully from the power to help your patinets to the best of your ability.

Just to note, I did not take maternity leave when I was young and learning the ropes but after I had already been a consultant for ten years! I did only take three months though as I could not afford to take any more. It worked out fine though. I expressed milk at work for nearly two years so was able to continue breast feeding, and everything worked out fine with childcare, because I could afford a nanny and my DH was able to care for the baby too. I can't see that I have been disadvantaged in any way.

Sorry about typos, a toddler was on my lap!

I don't think any women would go into medicine with the express purpose of having power over anyone let alone other women. I do think that medicine as with all professions is inclined towards having a slightly male culture but hopefully women are making gains and some are being promoted to top positions. It's great to hear that this is happening because I think as more women have power within the system the better the culture will be. So thank you theDudesmummy and WrongButWromantic If women as a group and as individuals are more empowered and actually feel supported and respected then they are actually less likely to seek power over those who are vulnerable. I think Blistory made a good point about women behaviour being judged harshly either because they are judged against the bench mark of male behavior or because other women feel that any lack of empathy from a women is more significant than it would be in a man.

Next thing is.......how can you get more women into those specialties where men out number women?

I am in a subsection of my speciality where men very much outnumber women (traditionally a rather "macho" area wthin my speciality), and I was the first woman consultant in the unit (and in fact in the geographical area) in which I work. In the fourteen years isnce then I am pleased to say that a lot more women are coming in. Why this is I am not sure, but it is certainly a welcome development.