When female medical students are the majority: do numbers really make a difference?

According to Kanter's theory of group dynamics, when women constitute half or more of the population in a given setting, their interactions with their male peers are more balanced and they are in a better position to influence their colleagues' professional attitudes and behavior. The influence is only significant, however, if other structural factors favor attitude and behavioral changes. Using data obtained from a mail survey of 1,247 students (82.4% response rate) conducted at three levels of medical training in three medical schools where female students were in the majority, we compared male and female students on their professional attitudes. At entrance to medical school, women were more interested in the humanistic, psychosocial, and multidisciplinary components of the physician's role than their male colleagues. At the intermediate level, however, women's interest in humanistic and psychosocial issues was less pronounced and at the graduate level this gender difference was no larger present. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for medical training.

The professional attitudes and practice characteristics of male and female specialists.

Using data obtained from a mail survey of 119 female and 140 male specialists conducted in Quebec in 1983-1984, we compared men and women on their attitudes and on the organizational, professional, and clinical characteristics of their medical practices. Analyses were performed separately for medical and surgical specialists. Gender differences in the clinical practice of medical specialists were found, with women reporting greater attention to the social, preventive, and human aspects of patient care than men. Among surgical specialists, women expressed more favorable attitudes toward the social component in health care than their male colleagues. They also differed from men on indicators measuring various practice characteristics. These findings may reflect gender differences in type of surgical specialty, since the majority of female surgeons were in ophthalmology. Overall, fewer women specialists reported that they had assumed administrative responsibilities. The implications of these results are discussed in the context of the increasing feminization of the medical profession.

The professional attitudes and clinical practices of men and women generalists.

Data from a 1983-84 Quebec generalists' survey were used to compare the professional attitudes and clinical practices of women physicians with those of their male colleagues. The survey was conducted on a random sample of 736 Quebec generalists and achieved a 83.7% response rate. Analyses were performed separately for fee-for-service physicians and for salaried physicians working in local community health centers (CLSCS). Results showed more gender differences among fee-for-service physicians than among salaried physicians. Women in private practice were more likely than their male colleagues to value the multidisciplinary, social, and humanistic aspects of patient care. For their part, women salaried physicians reported being significantly more involved in the social and preventive dimensions of health care than their male colleagues. Important attitudinal differences were observed between fee-for-service and salaried generalists, regardless of gender. This study suggests that neither the medical training nor the organizational constraints of the work setting succeed in levelling off all gender differences. The findings also suggest that women physicians can help promote aspects of health care to which much importance has been attributed in recent years.

Do female general practitioners have a distinctive type of medical practice?

Using data collected in 1983-84 for a representative sample of 736 general practitioners practising in Quebec, we compared the practice characteristics of the 296 female physicians and the 320 male physicians who agreed to participate. The female doctors were more likely than the male doctors to favour salaried practice in local community health centres, to practise in an urban setting and to have an office-based practice. The female physicians had a less diversified type of practice, being less involved in hospital care, emergency care, home care and administrative work. Sex differences were more marked for physicians in fee-for-service practice than for salaried physicians. Given the increasing numbers of women in the medical profession, these findings are of special interest since they indicate distinctive differences in medical practice between women and men.

[Paid work, family and women's mental health.]. / Travail salarié, famille et santé mentale des femmes : Revue de la littérature.

In this article, the results of a research on the influence of family and remunerated work on the mental health of women are presented. The impact of the working environment is analysed from the point of view of the characteristics of hiring, of the level of satisfaction at work and of the social support. The impact of the family environment is studied in the areas of shared responsabilities between married people, of the attitudes towards the presence of women in the work force, of single parentage and of family life cycles. Areas of long term and short term researches are proposed.