I Am Not A Nurse!

I AM NOT A NURSE | Sexism In Medicine

Written by Abisola Ogundiran - April 10, 2021

Don't get me wrong; nurses are highly skilled medical professionals that contribute enormously to the healthcare system. We would all be lost without nurses. Nurses collaborate with other healthcare professionals to deliver holistic care to patients. Patients and their relatives often trust the nurses more than the doctors and deservedly so because the Nurse is closer to the patient.

This article is not to put down the wonderful heroes, the nurses who toil day and night for patients' health. Instead, the aim of my post is to shed light on the perception of patients towards female doctors. Female doctors are often referred to as nurses by the patients and their relatives. There is this instant assumption that any female that walks into the room is not a doctor. Even after introducing herself as a doctor, some will still refer to her as a nurse.

A Female Physician's Experience

"On my first day as a physician. I was nervous yet eager to start the day. My patient was an elderly man. I walked into the room to find a male nurse filling out the patient's chart. The nurse introduced me to the patient as his doctor, but the old man gave me a once-over and stubbornly decided I was a nurse. He turned to the male nurse addressing him as the doctor while completely ignoring me. I greeted him again politely and re-affirmed myself as his doctor. The male nurse also insisted I was the doctor and the patient should cooperate with me. After this happened, I thought to myself that my first-day jitters had shone through and that my confidence would grow with experience. All new doctors must experience this, I thought, sure it would be an isolated event; I was wrong. Over the course of my career, I've been referred to repeatedly by patients and their caregivers as a nurse. My male Doctor colleagues often drop the "Doctor" title from my name when introducing me to colleagues, forcing me to correct them. Out of respect, they wouldn't dare forget the Doctor title for themselves or other male doctor colleagues. When I talked about my experience with male doctors they all claimed to have never experienced being mistaken for a nurse, even in the early years, while a good number of male nurses have reported patients automatically assumed they were doctors. Is it safe to assume this is based on their gender? I think so."

Why Does This Happen?

There are many possible explanations about why this happens. Perhaps it is due to the history of the nursing profession. In the past, nursing was considered a female profession. To date, the nursing profession is dominated by women. In the United States, 91% of nurses are females. In Australia, 88.25% of nurses are female, and in the UK 89.3% of nurses are female. There's no disputing that most often, your nurse will be female.

The gender disparity in medicine can’t be disputed at the doctor level either because the ratio of male to female doctors in the US, for example, is 1.8 males to each female doctor. There are so few female doctors that the natural assumption is that every female that walks into the room is a nurse. The traditional gender roles on power dynamics might also play a part for older generations because the misconception is that females are meek instruction takers, not the ones who make decisions. Considering this school of thought, it is evident that females are not expected to fit the doctor molds but should be nurses instead.

Things Are Changing

While "82.4% of physicians over the age of 65 are male," according to athenahealth.com "more than 60% of physicians under the age of 35 are female."

The Way Forward

“The field is routinely under-promoting, under-supporting, under-rewarding, and under-training female physicians. And yet, despite these implicit and systematic barriers, female physicians continue to persist and achieve better outcomes than their male colleagues. A second implication is that male physicians can learn from their female colleagues.” - How Discrimination Against Female Doctors Hurts Patients, HBR - by Christopher G. Myers and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe - August 30, 2018

I think it is important the public understands that we have many female doctors today. If you are unsure what title the medical personnel holds, you can read their visible name tags or simply ask instead of assuming.

Also, it is quite unfair to doubt someone's knowledge or skills based on their gender. I have seen several cases where patients outright demand a male doctor because they are not sure the female knows what she is doing before she even had a chance to prove herself.

Give your female doctors a chance, ask questions if you do not understand something. Give them a chance to prove themselves because research shows, “female doctors spend more time with patients than their male colleagues, and are also more likely to order tests and discuss preventative care — qualities some might suggest roughly translate to simply being better at their jobs.” - Female Doctors Make Less Than Male Doctors, Despite Spending More Time With Patients, Inside Hook - by Kayla Kibbe

References:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7004221/

https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2018/04/oh-are-you-a-nurse-the-physician-gender-bias.html

https://hbr.org/2018/08/how-discrimination-against-female-doctors-hurts-patients

https://www.insidehook.com/daily_brief/news-opinion/female-doctors-make-less-than-male-doctors

https://www.athenahealth.com/knowledge-hub/practice-management/healthcare-future-female