GENDER-ROLES, MEDICAL-PRACTICE ROLES, AND OB-GYN CAREER CHOICE - A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY

This paper discusses follow-up data from physicians who were studied ten years earlier when they were medical students. Seventeen physicians were practicing ob-gyn, and 57 of the physicians studied: Had been interested in an ob-gyn career when they were medical students. At Time 1, women were more likely than men to be strongly interested in ob-gyn, but they were no more likely than men to be ob-gyn physicians at Time 2. The desire to: Have a surgical specialty was much more important to men than to women practitioners. Men ob-gyn practitioners were significantly more traditional in their sex-role outlook as medical students than were either women practitioners or women who: Had been strongly interested in the field but did not enter it. The data suggest that women ob-gyn physicians are more likely than their male peers to be egalitarian in their relationships with female patients. © 1990 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.