Female doctors twice as likely as their male counterparts not to be called ‘doctor’: JAMA study
Do patients ditch your doctor title without permission? Let us know in our short survey.
A US study of how patients address doctors has found that female doctors are twice as likely to be called by their first name in written correspondence compared with male doctors.
GPs were also 50% more likely to miss out on the title ‘doctor’ compared with other specialists, according to the research into 30,000 patients’ messages to their doctors lodged via an online messaging system.
The findings, by researchers at the Mayo Clinic, were published in JAMA Network Open this month.
The study authors acknowledged they could not control for whether the doctors had specifically told patients they were okay to be addressed by their first name.
