Informative Model

Many studies have concluded that there seems to be a relationship between a physicians’ gender and the way that this affect patients. Roter and Hall (1998) explained why physician gender matters in shaping the physician-patient relationship. They mentioned in their research two sets of therapeutic relations that exists in the doctor-patient relationship— the paternalistic model and the informative model. In the paternalistic model the physician is an expert who conveys technical information sufficient for patients to select the medical intervention deemed more appropriate for themselves. On the other hand, the informative model is that in which the doctor assists patients with interpretation and understanding of the information within their

Bertakis et al. (1995) conducted a study in which they filmed university hospital primary care residents and patients who had no stated preference for a specific physician, in order to observe the residents’ practice styles. They observed that female physicians engaged in more preventative services and communicated differently with their patients. Female doctors devoted more time to discuss family medical or social matters, while male physicians devoted more time on history taking. Consequently, these differences between female doctors and their male counterparts, appeared to partially explain the higher satisfaction rate for female physicians when compared to their male colleagues. A study conducted by Derose et al. (1998) at an emergency department to English and Spanish speaking adults explored the effect of physician gender on patient satisfaction, and found similar results. The researchers found that having a female physician was associated with greater satisfaction among female patients, but unlike other studies, physician gender was not associated with male patients’ satisfaction. The reason why female patients had greater satisfaction than their male peers was because they were more successful in telling their story when they were

(2016) conducted a cross-sectional study in which they examined national representative data of hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries and they found that patients treated by female doctors had lower 30-day mortality and readmission rates when compared to those treated by male physicians within the same hospital. According to the researchers, female doctors are more likely to adhere to clinical guidelines, provide preventive care more often, use more patient-centered communication, perform as well or better on standardized examinations, and provide more psychosocial counseling to their patients than do their male peers. This differences among female physicians and their counterparts has profound implications for patient outcomes, satisfaction being one of them. Motivated by Tsugawa et al. (2016)’s study, Wallis et al. (2017) conducted a study in which they examined the effect that surgeon gender has on postoperative outcomes (in the short term) of patients undergoing common surgical procedures in Ontario, Canada. Like Tsugawa et al. (2016), their results suggested that patients of female surgeons had lower rates of 30-day mortality. They attributed these results to the likelihood that female physicians deliver care more congruent with guidelines, care that is more patient-centered, and engage in superior communication when compared to their male peers. Also, it is important to keep in mind that surgeons are not completely independent of teams, so the