Patients tend to listen more to female doctors

Hartford Courant Health  By Ronnie Cohen, Reuters | October 3, 2014 NewYork | Dr. Anne-Cecile Schieber, from the University of Toulouse III in Toulouse, France, led a team that examined how gender influenced the relationship between 585 patients and 27 general-practice doctors in three regions in France.  The researchers hypothesized that patients might be more inclined to trust doctors of the same gender. But the findings indicate that interpersonal skills may play more of a role than gender in promoting physician-patient trust.
“We think it’s more about communications training then it is about hiring practices,” research scientist Julie Schmittdiel told Reuters Health. “It’s not about gender so much as it’s about communication and enhancing communication.”  Read more