Canadian Study Finds Female Doctors Work Less than Male Doctors

By Robert Franklin, Esq. | Jun 17, 2009

http://mensnewsdaily.com/glennsacks/2009/06/17/canadian-study-finds-female-doctors-work-less-than-male-doctors/

You may think this is getting to be a habit on my part. Let me assure you that it's not. It's just that this information keeps coming out, and, well, it's germane to the issues we address here at GlennSacks.com, so I write about it.

This article reports on yet another study that shows that women work less than men due to childcare (National Post, 5/20/09). In the past couple of weeks or so, we've seen studies of graduates from the University of Chicago MBA program and the University of Michigan law school, as well as two studies of professors in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathmatics) area of academia. They all show the same thing - that women and men are treated equally in hiring, pay and promotions, until women start taking time off to do childcare.

Now a study of Canadian physicians finds that female [COLOR=#009600! important]doctors[/COLOR] on average spend about 30 hours per week in direct patient contact while male doctors spend about 35 hours. And again, the difference is childcare.

Apparently, that's not just a fact, it's a problem. Several years ago, Canadian medical schools decided to restrict admissions more than they already did. That was a uniquely bad decision given the fact that, at the time it was made, the baby boom generation was just about to hit the age at which [COLOR=#009600! important]health[/COLOR] services are needed more and more. Add to that the fact that medical school classes in Canada are now 60% female and you have greatly increased need for care from doctors who are working less and less.

One interesting sidelight is that, when this study came out several months ago, a group of doctors penned an indignant editorial in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association excoritating "the sexist blame game." They added,
"To disparage in any way the intelligent, dedicated women ... who have chosen to devote their lives to medicine is shameful."

Please. Isn't it about time we dropped this pose of righteous indignation every time someone speaks an inconvenient truth about women? The idea that the study was criticizing female physicians in any way is absolutely absurd. It did nothing but point out a very important fact about medical care in Canada. It's something Canadians clearly need to know in order to adopt appropriate policies to assure that there are enough doctors to serve the needs of the country's people in the years to come.

As the lead author of the study said,
"It's not meant to be a negative paper in any way. It's meant to take an objective, hard look at the work-hour differences that most people would agree are very real.... You can't simply ignore it because it's a sensitive issue."