male ob-gyn

[anxietypeaker]

m1 here so i really dont know enough about anything to comment really....but i have a few friends i've been speaking with and probably 25% of them all say obgyn is kinda cool (primary care, deliver babies, surgery combination). But ALL of them said they could never do it cuz they're guys and feel that a lot of patients would prefer not to see a male gyn.

Does this happen often? I'm not too interested in obgyn, but who knows in 4 yrs...

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[VA Hopeful Dr]

m1 here so i really dont know enough about anything to comment really....but i have a few friends i've been speaking with and probably 25% of them all say obgyn is kinda cool (primary care, deliver babies, surgery combination). But ALL of them said they could never do it cuz they're guys and feel that a lot of patients would prefer not to see a male gyn.

Does this happen often? I'm not too interested in obgyn, but who knows in 4 yrs...

Not OB, but as an FM resident I do a decent bit of OB-Gyn work. Thus far, I've probably seen 50-60 patients typical of what you'd see in a standard OB/Gyn office. Of those, only 2 had issue with me being a dude.

Most of our hospitals affiliated OB/Gyns are males and seem to do just fine. I also know 2 male OB/Gyns socially and both are booked up pretty solid.

So basically, unless someone here has personal experience that disagrees with me, I don't think being a guy by itself is enough to keep you out of the field.

 

[ObGynDestined]

I think it is a woman's personal preference to have a man or a woman. As a woman, I do not mind either way, as long as they know what they are doing. But I agree with the above response, I have worked with Ob/Gyns in various capacities, and it is very rare that a woman refuses to see a Dr bc he is male. I am applying for Ob/Gyn this year, and many of the program representatives I have spoke with at conferences indicate that they try to get at least on guy a year, but it does not necessarily work out that way.

 

[DeaconMD04]

I've probably had this happen 4-5 times in over a year. Most were for religious reasons. It shouldn't factor into your decision if you are interested in ob/gyn.

 

[Spin]

I actually prefer to see male obgyns. For some reason it seems like they'll be less judgmental about whatever they see down there because they can't compare it to their own private parts. I don't know if that's actually true, but it's enough to make me feel better about male obgyns than female ones.

 

[Kfire326]

*sigh*

Okay, here goes. I'm an MS4, male, and applying to OB/GYN. Between electives, clerkships in OB/GYN, family practice, medicine and away rotations in OB and GYN, I've only been asked not to perform/be present for the pelvic exam a handful of times. As long as you're decent and respectful, it's not an issue. And if you ARE asked to step out, it's probably not because you're rude and disrespectful (hopefully), so don't take offense to it. The reason won't always be religion, sometimes she's just not comfortable with some guy she just met and spoke to for 15 minutes examining her, regardless of the white coat. As long as you're comfortable with your patients, your patients will be comfortable with you.

 

[kleo0986]

I agree with the above. Gender is far less important than bedside manner and competence. I actually prefer a male doctor like Spin, so definitely don't stay out of the field just because you're a dude!

 

[bve388]

Sorry to rain on the parade, but it matters.

I have several years of private practice in two difference geographic regions in two different practices. In each case sex mattered. Tell yourself otherwise, but realize you are lying to yourself.

It has nothing to do with competency, bedside manner or anything else. Business comes, basically, in one of two ways referrals/advertising. A female patient is far more likely to give a good referral to a female doctor. Second, when a lot of patients (particularly for OB) call for a first visit, they generally request/ask for a female patient.

This happens all day long in both practices I was at. About half the physicians were female and they were all 50% busier and made 70% more than their male counterparts. Training and bedside manner was all pretty similar.

 

[Biology101]

Sorry to rain on the parade, but it matters.

I have several years of private practice in two difference geographic regions in two different practices. In each case sex mattered. Tell yourself otherwise, but realize you are lying to yourself.

It has nothing to do with competency, bedside manner or anything else. Business comes, basically, in one of two ways referrals/advertising. A female patient is far more likely to give a good referral to a female doctor. Second, when a lot of patients (particularly for OB) call for a first visit, they generally request/ask for a female patient.

This happens all day long in both practices I was at. About half the physicians were female and they were all 50% busier and made 70% more than their male counterparts. Training and bedside manner was all pretty similar.

those statistics are quite extensive...but your right, if that was your experience at two places, perhaps "WE" should all go to into a differnet field.

 

[Dotsero]

Sorry to rain on the parade, but it matters.

I have several years of private practice in two difference geographic regions in two different practices. In each case sex mattered. Tell yourself otherwise, but realize you are lying to yourself.

It has nothing to do with competency, bedside manner or anything else. Business comes, basically, in one of two ways referrals/advertising. A female patient is far more likely to give a good referral to a female doctor. Second, when a lot of patients (particularly for OB) call for a first visit, they generally request/ask for a female patient.

This happens all day long in both practices I was at. About half the physicians were female and they were all 50% busier and made 70% more than their male counterparts. Training and bedside manner was all pretty similar.

Would this be the case in a rural setting? It would seem that with fewer providers in a given location, you would see this kind of thing less.

 

[anonperson]

Just want to add me two cents for any males thinking of doing OB-GYN:

It's hit and miss in terms of what to expect in terms of jobs/compensation/volume. I have heard certain attendings say that come job search time it can be challenging, although my actual views have been mixed. The local groups in town recently hired 2-3 new OB-Gyns who are male compared to 1 female. It will vary.

You will always have a certain proportion of patients who will not want to see a male ob gyn. This is something that will happen and has happened to me on occasion mainly in the clinic setting in residency. That being said, my continuity clinics are generally packed (taking note that there are some patients who request no male physician and are never placed in my schedule).

I do not feel slighted in any way in terms of experience in labor and delivery, the OR, or the clinic due to patient preference.

I have friends who are OB residents at various programs around the country and they echo a similar sentiment.

In terms of job satisfaction, none of my male attendings have currently complained about being a male in the job. Their gripes are with declining reimbursements which is generally affecting all of medicine. And at least from what I have seen when I interviewed and at my current program, salaries can vary greatly and a fair amount of studies show male OB-GYNs earning more than female OB-GYNs

There have been a fair amount of studies on men in the OB-GYN field:
http://www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378(06)00335-8/abstract

(a relatively recent abstract)


Main thing is, be aware of the gender issue. Talk with attendings in your program and get their take as well. My med school program wanted the guys to be aware of this issue but supported everyone in their efforts.

 

[wannabeOBGYN]

m1 here so i really dont know enough about anything to comment really....but i have a few friends i've been speaking with and probably 25% of them all say obgyn is kinda cool (primary care, deliver babies, surgery combination). But ALL of them said they could never do it cuz they're guys and feel that a lot of patients would prefer not to see a male gyn.

Does this happen often? I'm not too interested in obgyn, but who knows in 4 yrs...

It definitely depends on the person. I see a male ob/gyn in a practice composed of almost all males because my mom goes to him and his father delivered all 3 of my mom's children so it just made sense to me. A friend of mine sees a male ob/gyn as well, and she says she prefers a guy because, "Well, they're meant to be down there anyway, so it makes sense." Then again, almost all of my other friends will only see females. On my ob rotation there was 1 male and 2 female doctors and nobody ever had a problem when the male was on call. Although I guess if they did they would have switched to an all-female practice before they got to the point of delivery. Long and short of it: depends on the patient.

 

[bve388]

Would this be the case in a rural setting? It would seem that with fewer providers in a given location, you would see this kind of thing less.

Yes, same thing occurs just different. In a major metro area it will probably be better actually, rather than worse. In a major metro there will be a large number of acceptable patient population, you will likely simply get the worse patients. IE: Worse payors. You will have a larger mix of medicare etc.

In rural areas it is worse because if you have 4-5 OBGYNs in a small town, and half are female, then all the good patients (ie: good payors, ob etc) will go to the females if they have any business sense. So they will siphon off the best payor/procedure mix and throw the rest at the guys who will get stuck dealing with medicaid/are, high risk, etc.

I know a few rural ob/gyns who are workers. Guys make 300-350. Women make 700.

 

[LIDO]

Yes, same thing occurs just different. In a major metro area it will probably be better actually, rather than worse. In a major metro there will be a large number of acceptable patient population, you will likely simply get the worse patients. IE: Worse payors. You will have a larger mix of medicare etc.

In rural areas it is worse because if you have 4-5 OBGYNs in a small town, and half are female, then all the good patients (ie: good payors, ob etc) will go to the females if they have any business sense. So they will siphon off the best payor/procedure mix and throw the rest at the guys who will get stuck dealing with medicaid/are, high risk, etc.

I know a few rural ob/gyns who are workers. Guys make 300-350. Women make 700.

Really? I find these numbers / facts very difficult to believe. I have some friends / family members in OBGYN and have never heard of such a large discrepancy. Can anybody else shed some light on this topic? Thanks.

 

[bve388]

Really? I find these numbers / facts very difficult to believe. I have some friends / family members in OBGYN and have never heard of such a large discrepancy. Can anybody else shed some light on this topic? Thanks.

I was honestly surprised by it as well. The women in the above examples were also all very hard workers, running rings around the men. Maybe that was because they had to because of their schedules or because of their personality, but either way they had an enormous advantage.

The best way to really see it is to talk to schedulers. When new patients call in, particularly for OB, the majority of them were requesting a female doctor. The only time, generally speaking, women were ok seeing a man was for a problem visit since getting to a female doc was usually a 4-6 week wait even for a problem visit.

We just finished our books for the year and all the docs made north of 340, the females averaged about 630 while the males averaged about 350.

Delivery numbers were about 330/yr for the females and 240/yr for the males.

 

[Biology101]

I was honestly surprised by it as well. The women in the above examples were also all very hard workers, running rings around the men. Maybe that was because they had to because of their schedules or because of their personality, but either way they had an enormous advantage.

The best way to really see it is to talk to schedulers. When new patients call in, particularly for OB, the majority of them were requesting a female doctor. The only time, generally speaking, women were ok seeing a man was for a problem visit since getting to a female doc was usually a 4-6 week wait even for a problem visit.

We just finished our books for the year and all the docs made north of 340, the females averaged about 630 while the males averaged about 350.

Delivery numbers were about 330/yr for the females and 240/yr for the males.

What state are you referring to?

 

[bve388]

those statistics are quite extensive...but your right, if that was your experience at two places, perhaps "WE" should all go to into a differnet field.

It benefits me, so it's ok

Would this be the case in a rural setting? It would seem that with fewer providers in a given location, you would see this kind of thing less.

I have been in two practices, both just outside major metros and it was true in both places. It caused major problems in the first practice because if you delivered 300 patients a year or 30 you all got paid the same. Which is why all the young female physicians quit (4 in 4 years).

It's hit and miss in terms of what to expect in terms of jobs/compensation/volume. I have heard certain attendings say that come job search time it can be challenging, although my actual views have been mixed. The local groups in town recently hired 2-3 new OB-Gyns who are male compared to 1 female. It will vary.

In my experience the major difference is need and model. If the practice is overworked and has too many patients of all kinds they will take whatever they can get, particularly if it is a shared revenue model. However if it is a practice where you will, in effect, be competing against your partners because it is a revenue based model, then you will see another side.

You will always have a certain proportion of patients who will not want to see a male ob gyn. This is something that will happen and has happened to me on occasion mainly in the clinic setting in residency. That being said, my continuity clinics are generally packed (taking note that there are some patients who request no male physician and are never placed in my schedule).

Oh, you are absolutely right, it goes both ways. Particularly with older women, they seem to be more comfortable with a male physician. However the OB population is quite another story. Out of every 100 patients we have come in the door as a new OB 39% requested a female physician. Those are also the non referrals (ie: they didn't know who they wanted before they called). This was also the case before at my other practice and is, roughly, the case at my colleagues practices throughout most parts of the country.

In terms of job satisfaction, none of my male attendings have currently complained about being a male in the job. Their gripes are with declining reimbursements which is generally affecting all of medicine. And at least from what I have seen when I interviewed and at my current program, salaries can vary greatly and a fair amount of studies show male OB-GYNs earning more than female OB-GYNs

I have read those studies as well, I don't know where they are getting their numbers honestly. It may be skewed because of a lot of the older generation using shared models, but with a simple revenue model ever female I know is on the upper end of MGMA and very few males compete with them (all things being equal). It all boils down to payor mix and OB numbers. A male is severely disadvantaged in those areas.

Really? I find these numbers / facts very difficult to believe. I have some friends / family members in OBGYN and have never heard of such a large discrepancy. Can anybody else shed some light on this topic? Thanks.

Again, depends on the model. I am looking at our year end numbers. Both women are sitting at top 1% of MGMA, all three men are in the 25-40% range.

What state are you referring to?

I can personally vouch for this being the case in 6 states. PA, NJ, TN, TX, NC, and IA.

 

[obstetricsmd]

Is anyone else wondering why bve388 is so focused on slamming her profession and her male colleagues? Why get on here after years of being in practice just to discourage so many people about how bad she hates her job?

 

[FutureDoc734]

Is anyone else wondering why bve388 is so focused on slamming her profession and her male colleagues? Why get on here after years of being in practice just to discourage so many people about how bad she hates her job?

I am wondering the EXACT same thing...

 

[Biology101]

Is anyone else wondering why bve388 is so focused on slamming her profession and her male colleagues? Why get on here after years of being in practice just to discourage so many people about how bad she hates her job?

I would like to hear the positives as well

 

[residencycoord]

I posted last week under another heading that I am glad that BVE388 is not part of our program, and that I would want her as far away from my residents as possible. We spend a lot time trying to recruit medical students into our field and we do not need the negativity that she brings to this forum.

We need the best and brightest men and women to go into the field.

If she is this miserable, then maybe she needs to choose another career path, and not try to discourage the students that go to this forum for positive advice. There is good and bad in every specialty and I believe one needs to hear both sides, but she is over the top.

 

[bve388]

Is anyone else wondering why bve388 is so focused on slamming her profession and her male colleagues? Why get on here after years of being in practice just to discourage so many people about how bad she hates her job?

I am not slamming the profession, I simply trying to tell you that once you come out of residency it will not get any better, you just get paid more, but will get a whole new set of problems and concerns, at least in PP.

As for male physicians, I didn't mean to come off as attacking them, not at all. They are every bit as good a physician as a woman, it is just that they often don't make the same amount of money and usually don't have the same access to jobs in a lot of cases. Nothing personal or professional, it is simply something worth noting. The same way females usually don't do as well in Ortho. Just life.

If she is this miserable, then maybe she needs to choose another career path, and not try to discourage the students that go to this forum for positive advice. There is good and bad in every specialty and I believe one needs to hear both sides, but she is over the top.

Ok, if you want to go from thread to thread attacking me, that's fine. I am not trying to discourage people but rather shed some light on the reality in PP and help people make the decisions or at least look down the right roads. I don't see any other PP docs here talking about the way it is, do you? I see a lot of students without real experience talking about what they *think* they will see. Then I see a number of academic program directors running around trying to put out forums.

It is not that the profession is miserable, it is simply that it is stressful and has a number of obstacles you will have to deal with your entire career. I simply stated that if I had the choice to do it again I would have done another specialty.

So, in consideration of that, what private practice experience do you have to counter my specific points? Rather than just attack, show me some counters and real specifics.

 

[gynogrl]

As a woman who sees an OB/GYN on a regular basis for annual exams, I resent the notion that all the "good patients" will demand a female physician. As a medical student, I obviously consider myself well-educated, and I don't discriminate based on gender. Every time I have moved, I have asked around to get a good recommendation for a new physician. When I was 16, I did see a female. It has switched back and forth several times though, and I currently see a male doctor. It seems like a ridiculous blanket statement to say that male ob/gyns will only have medicaid patients, especially when I've seen firsthand that that is not the case.

 

[bve388]

As a woman who sees an OB/GYN on a regular basis for annual exams, I resent the notion that all the "good patients" will demand a female physician. As a medical student, I obviously consider myself well-educated, and I don't discriminate based on gender. Every time I have moved, I have asked around to get a good recommendation for a new physician. When I was 16, I did see a female. It has switched back and forth several times though, and I currently see a male doctor. It seems like a ridiculous blanket statement to say that male ob/gyns will only have medicaid patients, especially when I've seen firsthand that that is not the case.

I didn't say that all the "good patients" will demand a female physician. I simply stated that a large number of patients will prefer to see a female physician, all things being equal. Thus, it gives the physician the ability to be more selective with which patients they see and which payors they accept.

Again, stop putting words in my mouth. My statement was that male physicians will, generally, have a less ideal patient population and also struggle to match the RVU pace that a female will. A lot goes into this and is hard to explain unless someone has seen how it really happens in private practice.

A great example is how a female physician can spend 5 minutes with a patient and the male must spend 10 minutes or be deemed a callous male who doesn't understand a woman, and thereby make the patient upset or look to transfer care. I am not saying this happens a lot, not even close to the majority, but if it happens 20% of the time that is absolutely huge.

I have been in two private practices and in both cases this absolutely happened. In the first no one cared because of how the profits were split, evenly amongst partners etc. In the second practice it is a big deal because the females are earning 60-70% more than their male counterparts because of this.

It's not right or wrong, it is simply life in a selling/advertised business, sex matters when you are dealing with certain things. I can tell you the same thing about race and ethnicity, or the same thing about a variety of different aspects, but this is the big one.

 

[Kfire326]

Okay, time to chime in. I'm a male entering OB/GYN and frankly don't really care what anyone says about males in the field. I have heard what's been said... it hasn't affected me and I don't think it should affect anyone else either. If you're a male entering OB/GYN, you've considered the gender difference whether you realize it or not. You wouldn't have the desire to do OB/GYN if patients were not comfortable with you as their provider already. If thats the case then you already know its not an issue for you, IMO. If you like the field and see yourself having a successful, enjoyable, fulfilling career in it, then do it. Everyone is their own person, and you'll do what you'll do and make the best of the situation when necessary. There is no general rule, and I wouldn't rush to assume I'd conform to it even if one existed. Patients have been very comfortable with me, and I will make sure that continues to be the case for the next however number of years I practice.

Anyway, all that being said, I think (hope) we can all agree on:

-it depends on the individual patients preference, race, religion, etc etc or whatever other reasons she has for choosing a male or female gyn
-it depends on the individual physician and the rapport he can or cannot establish with his patients in general, and with each individual patient with their concerns, etc
-it depends on the city and state, and therefore what the predominant social preferences are, whether they are relatively conservative or liberal, progressive etc.. whatever words you want to use
-and even within the same city, it depends where you are located - neighborhoods can range from conservative or orthodox religious populations to yuppie to middle class white Christian family with 2.5 children to anything else we can think of, depending on the particular city. Obviously some are more diverse than others.
-it depends on the overall personality and environment of your department or practice, and how comfortable the patient is there

basically... it depends?