Understanding the interplay of time, gender and professionalism in hospital medicine in the UK

Özbilgin, Mustafa F.; Tsouroufli, Maria; Smith, Merryn

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.03.030

Cited by 31 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…In the UK, as in Canada, the U.S. and Australia, more women are enrolling in medical education and the numbers of women in general practice have increased leading some to argue medicine has become more feminized at least in a numerical sense (Tsouroufli, 2015;Walsh, 2013). Along with greater flexibility in training and work patterns associated with the introduction of the working time directive in the UK, the greater presence of women in medicine has been constructed as contributing to a decline in medical professionalism, excellence and quality of care with nostalgia for 'all-hours' availability (Bolton, Muzio, & Boyd-Quinn, 2011;Özbilgin et al, 2011;Tsouroufli, 2015;Tsouroufli et al, 2011;Wallace, 2014;Walsh, 2013). Women who opt for part-time or non-hospital positions with more regular hours risk being labelled as not 'proper doctors' (Allen, 2005, p. 569 cited in Walsh, 2013Wallace, 2014;.…”

Section: Gender and Professionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contradictions concerning care: Female surgeons' accounts of the repression and resurfacing of care in their profession

Ainsworth

Flanagan

2019

Gender Work & Organization

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Surgery is a high-status, distinctly embodied, profession, dominated by men and saturated with masculine ideals of individual heroism, manual skill and detachment. In this study, we focus on exploring how surgery both represses, but also requires, caring work, creating gendered contradictions for the women that enter its ranks. Based on interviews with eighteen female surgeons from Australia and New Zealand, we apply a 'rationality of caring work' lens to explore how they experienced these contradictions through training, socialization and in everyday interactions. Our findings show inter-related mechanisms whereby female surgeons are required to become more independent and self-reliant than comparable men, but also make up for the systemic lack of care shown to junior staff and students. In particular, their pregnancy and motherhood challenge the ideal of the detached, independent, heroic agent. We conclude by discussing how a 'rationality of caring' lens could help unpack the gendered contradictions women experience in other elite professions.

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Section: Gender and Professionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contradictions concerning care: Female surgeons' accounts of the repression and resurfacing of care in their profession

Ainsworth

Flanagan

2019

Gender Work & Organization

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“…Workers may perform femininity through activities presumed to be natural aptitudes for women: establishing relationships with care charges (Rodriquez, ), being empathetic (Nicolai and Demmel, ), providing companionship and support (Aronson and Neysmith, ) and treating those in need as they would their own family members (Dodson and Zincavage, ; Stacey, ). However, workers also likely perform masculinity through activities presumed to be natural aptitudes for men: keeping cool during times of stress (Connell, ; Connell and Messerschmidt, ), unconditional devotion to the difficult and long hours of medicine (Kellogg, ; Ozbilgin et al ., ; Walsh, ), responding to problems cognitively (Dahlkild‐Ohman and Eriksson, ), developing technical skill (Calasanti and King, ; Doucet, ) and distancing selves from emotionality (Clark, ). These studies show that feminine and masculine qualities are both enacted in caring work.…”

Section: Doing Gendered Emotion Management In Hospice Caring Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Boundaried Caring and Gendered Emotion Management in Hospice Work

Cain¹

2017

Gender, Work & Organization

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Caring work, which is premised on caring for and caring about recipients, involves a great deal of emotion management. Feeling rules shape expectations about emotion management and are informally shared through workers’ narratives about quality work. Using qualitative data from hospice workers in the southwestern US, I find that narratives of quality within hospice include emotion‐management skills such as listening, truly caring, keeping calm and maintaining boundaries. Through an analysis of how workers discuss and map skills onto individual women and men co‐workers, this article highlights two gendered patterns. First, even when women and men are thought to share high‐quality skills, the ways these skills are described reinforce naturalistic understandings of gender. Second, men are seen to hold a broad range of emotion‐management skills, but women are not described as holding the most important emotion‐management skill: keeping boundaries. Understanding this differential application of emotion‐management skills helps us to understand how gender and gender inequality are reproduced within caring work.

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“…Even amongst high-status professionals, the traditional patterns persist, where men typically devote more time and energy to their work responsibilities than women, and women devote more time to their family responsibilities than men. Additionally, female physicians typically work fewer hours than their male colleagues, and are more likely to work part time, even though this often incurs criticism from their colleagues (Boulis and Jacobs, 2008;Martin, 2003;Özbilgin et al, 2011;Tsourourfli et al, 2011). Additionally, female physicians typically work fewer hours than their male colleagues, and are more likely to work part time, even though this often incurs criticism from their colleagues (Boulis and Jacobs, 2008;Martin, 2003;Özbilgin et al, 2011;Tsourourfli et al, 2011).…”

Section: Gender Work and Family Involvementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender and Supportive Co‐Worker Relations in the Medical Profession

Wallace¹

2013

Gender Work & Organization

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Women's growing numerical representation in the professions has not necessarily translated into women being truly integrated in these occupations. Questionnaire data are used to examine whether female physicians are socially integrated in the male‐dominated profession of medicine in terms of the support they receive from their medical colleagues compared to male physicians. The literature on tokenism and homophily suggests that women in male‐dominated professions receive less support than their male colleagues, whereas the social support literature predicts that women typically receive more emotional support than men but less informational and instrumental support. The results of this study shed light on the complex and multi‐layered ways in which gender is relevant to our understanding of the extent to which co‐workers provide empathy, information and assistance to one another.

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Understanding the interplay of time, gender and professionalism in hospital medicine in the UK

Cited by 31 publications

References 37 publications

Contradictions concerning care: Female surgeons' accounts of the repression and resurfacing of care in their profession

Contradictions concerning care: Female surgeons' accounts of the repression and resurfacing of care in their profession

Boundaried Caring and Gendered Emotion Management in Hospice Work

Gender and Supportive Co‐Worker Relations in the Medical Profession

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