Internal medicine specialists' attitudes towards working part-time: a comparison between 1996 and 2004

Abstract

Background: Although medical specialists traditionally hold negative views towards working parttime, the practice of medicine has evolved. Given the trend towards more part-time work and that there is no evidence that it compromises the quality of care, attitudes towards part-time work may have changed as well in recent years. The aim of this paper was to examine the possible changes in attitudes towards part-time work among specialists in internal medicine between 1996 and 2004. Moreover, we wanted to determine whether these attitudes were associated with individual characteristics (age, gender, investments in work) and whether attitudes of specialists within a partnership showed more resemblance than specialists' attitudes from different partnerships.

Gender differences in medical students’ motives and career choice

“…If living with a partner is as important for men as it is for women the coming generation of doctors will be more open-minded and support a cultural change in which surgery specialties are more accessible to women. Not all medical specialties facilitate the balance between home and work [1,36]. This situation may limit students with a partner in their choices, raising the possibility that they reconsider their initial choice and opt for a medical specialty more appropriate to their circumstances.…”

“…Future studies should at least include students who are in specialist training, because the number of students living with a partner is rather small in this study [36,40]. …”

Trends in the Academic Workforce of Obstetrics and Gynecology

“…[2][3][4][5][6][7] As documented in other specialties, most departments of obstetrics and gynecology have part-time faculty. [11][12][13][14][15][16] It is not surprising that the chairs anticipate an increase in requests for part-time positions by future faculty. A recent study demonstrated an increase of part-time faculty in internal medicine by 88% in the past 20 years.…”

Healthcare system design and parttime working doctors

“…Increasing research is being performed on the effects of physicians working parttime in healthcare [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Several of these studies reported no differences between parttime and fulltime physicians in terms of (quality) performance [11,12].…”