Results from the Time To Go research project found female GPs felt ‘targeted’ by politicians and policy makers.
Despite loving their profession, female GPs feel overwhelmingly devalued by their working conditions, according to one newly-published Australian study.
Co-authored by prominent GP researcher Professor Louise Stone, former RACGP president Professor Karen Price, GP Associate Professor Michelle Barrett and researchers Associate Professor Megan Cahill and Dr Erin Walsh, the paper forms part of the Time To Go research project funded by the RACGP research foundation.
The project specifically focussed on the motivations of female GPs who were either in the process of retiring or were planning to cut back on clinical work hours.
Of the 770 survey respondents, 54% said they had retired or reduced their clinical hours by more than half in the previous five years, and a further 32% said they planned to do so in the next five years.
Some of the ‘turning points’ cited by respondents included realising they had lost their sense of professional worth, feeling unable to continue the “Sisyphean task” of contemporary general practice and feeling that the weight of disrespect was unbearable.
“GPs resented the increasing unpaid labour, including ‘pointless’ and ‘discriminatory’ bureaucratic tasks that they had to ‘donate’ to ensure their patients received appropriate care,” the study, published in the Australian Health Review, said.
“They felt ‘targeted’, subject to ‘bullying’ and ‘scapegoating’ from governments, ‘entitled patients’, media and other professions.
“Professional disrespect and ‘wage theft’ became progressively unbearable. They resented the gendered nature of their work, which led to more emotional labour, more stress and less financial reward.”
Despite theoretically being free to set their own fees, female GPs earn roughly $102,000 less than their male counterparts in billings each year.
Per hour, female GPs earn around 6.5% less than male GPs, due largely to a difference in consult length and patient mix.
“When I started medicine, it was always the joke that women saw the ‘tears and smears’,” Professor Price told The Medical Republic.
“I worked in a practice where the male doctors actively encouraged patients to see me.
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“Even though I was doing the same procedures, even though I was doing x-rays, even though I was resetting fractures, my income suddenly started to drop because I found I was choked with long and complex consultations, and the guys were doing the procedures.”
Professor Price, who was RACGP president when the pharmacist-led prescribing trials first began to pop up, said role replacement in recent years had further damaged morale.
“The women GPs who were interviewed say ‘I like the job, but I can’t be this disrespected anymore’,” she said.
“You see the Pharmacy Guild of Australia … can do whatever they like, without any oversight and without the degree of training or safety netting.
“[You see] the government signalling that we [GPs] earn ridiculous amounts of money, which most female GPs do not.
“And you’ve got even other parts of your profession saying, ‘well, GPs are just a sort of like a failed specialist’.”
To improve retention of female GPs, the researchers recommended reducing the Medicare-imposed gender pay gap by valuing short and long consultations equally, holding organisations and individuals accountable for reputational harms caused by public discourse and funding more GP-led research.
