Women physicians are more frequently addressed by their first name, instead of their professional title (Harvey et al., 2022). This bias through use of first names comes from colleagues and patients alike, both male and female. This is likely related to the gender stereotypes that women are perceived to hold less authority than men (Sieghart, 2022). Such bias on medical teams and in faculty departments result in situations where learners, patients, and administrators assume men are to be “doctor” and women have to prove their worth of their title.
Male colleagues often do not need to advocate for themselves in the same way, which can sometimes result in them inadvertently creating difficult situations in hierarchical settings. A common example is when a male colleague tells a learner to call them by their first name (e.g., “Call me John”). This action is seemingly benign coming from an individual with privilege, as it is unlikely someone will doubt they hold authority. Though likely done with no malintent, such actions show a lack of regard for how colleagues with intersectional identities may then have their titles discarded unintentionally.
Women are not afforded the assurance that they will not lose authority when professional titles are dropped.
Women are not afforded the privilege to ignore how doing so will impact colleagues with intersectional identities.
Your call to action:
- Have one-on-one conversations with others about how you prefer to be addressed and ask for their allyship.
- Advocate for use of professional titles in hierarchical spaces.
- Address all colleagues by their titles in places in which it is important to set a culture of equity for all.
- Gently correct others if you hear them informally address colleagues in professional spaces.
References:
Harvey JA, Butterfield RJ, Ochoa SA, Yang YW. Patient Use of Physicians’ First (Given) Name in Direct Patient Electronic Messaging. JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5(10):e2234880. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.34880
Sieghart, M. A. (2022). The Authority Gap: Why women are still taken less seriously than men, and what we can do about it. WW Norton & Company.