[NonValueAdded]

There is one aspect that the article didn't mention and that is in the common view, boys are doctors; girls are nurses. A male nurse is therefore someone not good enough to be a doctor. Of course this doesn't recognize that a nurse is a highly skilled individual and often as good as a doctor when it comes to care decisions. But it is definitely second place so I think it is a competence concern revealed by gender stereotypes. Note that the concern is highest in older patients who grew up under the boy =, girl = model. I'm not saying it is well-founded or anything, just why I think people react the way they do.

[AQGeiger]

But it is definitely second place so I think it is a competence concern revealed by gender stereotypes.

Nursing being "second place" is really quite untrue. Unfortunately, there is a stereotype that folks that can't get into medical school nowadays just go to nursing school. I know plenty of nursing students that are just as bright as (or more so than) the medical students I attend class with. They enter nursing because they want to perform nursing, not doctoring. But as far as the importance of nursing in comparison to being a physician, I really don't think it's fair to say that. Doctors do take the responsibility of diagnosis and charting a course of treatment, but would not be able to do their jobs without nurses. Nurses are much better at a great many things than doctors are. So it's a separate but equally important vocation.

I say that as a medical student. I don't mean to be combative, I just think it's bad that that perception exists.

[ABN 505]

I believe that in the Soviet Union most of the MD's are women and the professsion is held in low esteem for some reason. Anyone have a explanation for that?