The hospital’s Radiology Information System was then searched to determine if the outpatient medical visit had generated an imaging study. Information related to the physician seen included the gender of the physician, years since graduation from medical school, and an indicator of discordance between the gender of the physician and that of the patient. Visit type was categorized as either “new,” if the patient had not been seen previously in the practice or “repeat” if the patient had been seen previously in the practice. A visit was classified as urgent if it occurred within 2 days of the time the visit was scheduled. We also determined the number of outpatient visits each patient made to the practice during the 6-month study period. Data abstracted from the outpatient medical record for each of these visits included patient age, the gender of the patient, visit urgency, visit type, and physician seen. The purpose of our study was to examine the role that the gender of the physician plays in the utilization of diagnostic imaging studies (plain film “x-rays,” computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasonography, and diagnostic mammography) in a hospital-based outpatient medicine practice.Įvery outpatient visit to an attending physician (16 male, 7 female) or a general medicine fellow (4 male, 2 female) in the hospital-based general internal medicine practice between January 1 and Jwas included in the study. Although the gender of the physician should not influence what imaging test a patient needs, studies have found that a number of non-illness-related factors influence resource utilization, including geographic region, 6 patient race, 7 and patient socioeconomic status. To our knowledge no study has examined the role that the physician’s gender plays in the utilization of diagnostic imaging studies.

5 These studies suggest that female physicians provide more preventive services than male physicians.

Studies have addressed the different utilization rates by male and female physicians of gender-specific screening tests, 1 – 3 gender-neutral screening tests, 2, 4 and hormone replacement therapy. During the past few years there has been growing interest in the analysis of physician practice patterns and the role that the gender of the physician and the gender of the patient play in the delivery of health care.

Outpatient diagnostic