Physician gender has stimulated a good deal of interest as a possible source of variation in the interpersonal aspects of medical practice, with speculation that female physicians are more patient-centered in their communication with patients. Our objective is to synthesize the results of two meta-analytic reviews the effects of physician gender on communication in medical visits within a communication framework that reflects patient-centeredness and the functions of the medical visit. We performed online database searches of English-language abstracts for the years 1967 to 2001 (MEDLINE, AIDSLINE, PsycINFO, and BIOETHICS), and a hand search was conducted of reprint files and the reference sections of review articles and other publications. Studies using a communication data source such as audiotape, videotape, or direct observation were identified through bibliographic and computerized searches. Medical visits with female physicians were, on average, two minutes (10%) longer than those of male physicians. During this time, female physicians engaged in significantly more communication that can be considered patient-centered. They engaged in more active partnership behaviors, positive talk, psychosocial counseling, psychosocial question asking, and emotionally focused talk. Moreover, the patients of female physicians spoke more overall, disclosed more biomedical and psychosocial information, and made more positive statements to their physicians than did the patients of male physicians. Obstetrics and gynecology may present a pattern different from that of primary care: Male physicians demonstrated higher levels of emotionally focused talk than their female colleagues. Female primary care physicians and their patients engaged in more communication that can be considered patient-centered and had longer visits than did their male colleagues. Limited studies exist outside of primary care, and gender-related practice patterns might differ in some subspecialties from those evident in primary care.

中文翻译：

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医师性别与以患者为中心的交流：对实证研究的批判性评论。

医师的性别引起了人们极大的兴趣，认为这可能是医学实践中人际关系变化的一种可能来源，并推测女性医师在与患者的沟通中更加以患者为中心。我们的目标是在反映患者中心性和医疗访问功能的交流框架内，综合两次荟萃分析的结果，以评估医生性别对医疗访问中交流的影响。我们对1967年至2001年的英语摘要（MEDLINE，AIDSLINE，PsycINFO和BIOETHICS）进行了在线数据库搜索，并对重新打印的文件以及评论文章和其他出版物的参考部分进行了手工搜索。使用通讯数据源（例如录音带，录像带，或直接观察是通过书目和计算机搜索确定的。平均而言，女医生的医疗服务要比男医生多两分钟（10％）。在这段时间里，女医生进行了更多的交流，这被认为是以患者为中心的。他们从事更积极的伙伴关系行为，积极的谈话，心理咨询，心理问题提问和以情感为重点的谈话。此外，女医生的患者比男性医生的患者讲得更全面，披露了更多的生物医学和社会心理信息，并对他们的医生做出了更积极的陈述。妇产科可能呈现出与初级保健不同的模式：男医生表现出比女性同事更高的情感集中度。与男性同事相比，女性初级保健医生及其患者所从事的沟通更多，被认为是以患者为中心，并且访问时间更长。在初级保健之外存在有限的研究，与性别相关的实践模式在某些亚专业中可能与初级保健中明显的不同。