No one said it was going to be easy, not when Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to get a U.S. medical degree in 1849 and not when I graduated from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 2003. Still, I was unprepared for how different I would be treated as a woman in the world of Big Medicine. The gender pay gap is part of it.

Women Doctors Treated Differently by Patients

I was a first-year medical student when I saw my first patient. He was a middle-aged man, a farmer with haunted eyes and callused hands. We talked about the stress of his job, how he was having a hard time paying the bills, and how he felt his wife pulling away. He outright acknowledged he was depressed. We sat in the exam room for a long time talking, so long that the nurse came to get me.

When I told my preceptor, a male doctor, about everything, he was obviously concerned. We went to see him together to offer support and guess what? The farmer denied the whole thing! “Doc,” he said, “I am fine. I just wanted you to check out this splinter.” A splinter? Really?

Sure enough, the data supports my experience. A meta-analysis in Patient Education & Counseling found that patients interact differently with female and male doctors. They tend to be more open with women and are more likely to talk about psychosocial issues. The problem is they tend to interrupt woman doctors more often and are more likely to be assertive with them. I can say I have had that experience too. Whether it’s antibiotics or painkillers, I have had my fair share of patients try to coerce me into giving them treatments I did not think were appropriate.

Women Doctors Treated Differently by Peers

It is not only that patients treat women doctors differently. Professionals do as well, especially if they happen to be male. A 2017 study in the Journal of Women’s Health bore that out when it looked at introductions given during academic Grand Rounds. In this case, a physician speaker gives a formal presentation on an Internal Medicine topic.

How often do you think the speaker was introduced by their professional title?

• 97.8% of the time when a female introduces a female speaker
• 95% of the time when a female introduces a male speaker
• 72.4% of the time when a male introduces a male speaker
• 49.2% of the time when a male introduces a female speaker

Women physicians are not treated the same as their male counterparts. Although women maintain a level of professionalism, they are not always given the same courtesy. Instead, they are marginalized despite their years of training and hard work.

Women Doctors and The Gender Pay Gap

Gender differences in medicine are even more pronounced when it comes to the pay gap.

Review of Medicare data shows that a woman doctor earns less than a man for the same level of work, the same productivity, and the same level of experience. This was found to be the case across 13 medical specialties in a 2016 study published in Postgraduate Medical Journal. A study in JAMA Internal Medicine that same year showed that female faculty in 24 U.S. medical schools received significantly lower pay when compared to their male counterparts. It didn’t matter if the woman doctor had achieved the same faculty rank, published the same amount of publications, completed as much research, or generated comparable clinical revenue.

A 2018 study in Annals of Internal Medicine shows that female doctors make a median $50,000 less per year than their male counterparts. Worse, a 2021 study in Health Affairs found that over a 40-year career, woman doctors earned more than $2M less than male doctors. That’s about 25% less.

The simple fact is that the gender pay gap continues despite the fact that women doctors have a track record of providing quality care. A JAMA Internal Medicine study made waves in 2017 when it compared female and male internists head to head within different hospital systems. Review of more than 1.5 million hospital admissions over a 3 year period revealed that Medicare patients treated by female internists fared better than those who received care by male internists. They had lower rates of mortality and were less likely to be readmitted to the hospital within 30 days. A 2018 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that women with a heart attack were more likely to survive emergency-department treatment by a woman doctor than by a man.

Why are women doctors paid less?

It’s Time for a Change

Becoming a doctor is no easy feat. The years of training are intensive, but a doctor answers the call. They make the sacrifice, knowing it will make a difference in the lives of others. It should not matter their gender, a doctor deserves respect for their dedication to the field. There should be equal pay for equal work. It’s time for a change.

 

Desai T, Ali S, Fang X, Thompson W, Jawa P, Vachharajani T. Equal Work for Unequal Pay: The Gender Reimbursement Gap for Healthcare Providers in the United States. Postgrad Med J. 2016;92(1092):571-5. https://doi.org/10.1136/postgradmedj-2016-134094

Files JA, Mayer AP, Ko MG, et al. Speaker Introductions at Internal Medicine Grand Rounds: Forms of Address Reveal Gender Bias. Journal of Women’s Health. 2017;26(5). https://doi.org/10.1089/jwh.2016.6044

Greenwood B, Carnahan S, Huang L. Patient–physician gender concordance and increased mortality among female heart attack patients. PNAS. 2018 Aug; 201800097. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1800097115.

Jena AB, Olenski AR, Blumenthal DM. Sex Differences in Physician Salary in US Public Medical Schools. JAMA Intern Med. 2016;176(9):1294-1304. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.3284

Hall, Judith A, Roter DL. Do Patients Talk Differently to Male and Female Physicians? Patient Education and Counseling. 2002 Dec;48(3):217-224. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0738-3991(02)00174-X

Read S, Butkus R, Weissman A, Moyer DV. Compensation Disparities by Gender in Internal Medicine. Ann Intern Med. 2018. https://doi.org/10.7326/M18-0693

Roter DL, Hall JA. Women Doctors Don’t Get the Credit They Deserve. J Gen Intern Med. 2015;30(3):273–274. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-014-3081-9

Tsugawa Y, Anupam B. Jena AB, Figueroa JF, et al. Comparison of Hospital Mortality and Readmission Rates for Medicare Patients Treated by Male vs Female Physicians. JAMA Intern Med. 2017;177(2):206-213. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.7875

Whaley, CM, Koo, T, Arora, VM, Ganguli I, Gross N, Jena AB. Female physicians earn an estimated $2 million less than male physicians over a simulated 40-year career: Study examines estimated career gap in pay between female physicians and male physicians. Health Affairs, 2021;40(12), 1856–1864. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.00461