“Doing Gender” in Doctor-patient Interactions: Gender Composition of Doctor-patient Dyads and Communication Patterns

 
 
 
 

“Doing Gender” in Doctor-patient Interactions: Gender Composition of Doctor-patient Dyads and Communication Patterns

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Title: “Doing Gender” in Doctor-patient Interactions: Gender Composition of Doctor-patient Dyads and Communication Patterns
Author: MacArthur, Kelly Rhea
Description: There are many well documented gender differences in language, but explanations for why they exist vary. Taking a distinctly sociological approach, this thesis uses the “doing gender” framework to analyze gender in interactions. Drawing on past literature on women and men generally and on women and men physicians specifically, this research examines how gender affects doctor-patient communication. Using medical student-standardized patient interactions, several different specific communication behaviors are measured to indicate if women physicians conduct more patient-centered, partnership-building medical encounters and if they have communication skills that are considered to be better than men physicians’. Results show that women physicians do not have medical encounters that indicate greater patient-centered care or greater symmetrical encounters than men physicians do. The results of this study suggest that the influence of patients in forming doctor-patient interactions should not be ignored, as they typically have been in past studies. As with all social interactions, women and men are always “doing gender” in doctor-patient interactions even though diminished gender effects on communication are found here. If gender differences in language were due to essentialist, natural differences between the two sexes, they would be consistent across contexts, which the results of this study show they are not.
Permanent Link: http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1216054789
http://hdl.handle.net/2374.OX/108115
Date: 2008

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