Patients correctly identify female attending physicians as doctors significantly less frequently than they identify male attending physicians as doctors. Patients correctly identify male nurses as nurses significantly less frequently than they identify female nurses as nurses. We found no evidence that the gender of the patients impacts the recognition of physicians and nurses. Younger patients are identifying physicians by their gender better than older patients, but bias still exists for female attending physicians.

These results suggest that gendered stereotypes continue to exist in EM despite recent advances in women entering the medical workforce as physicians and males as nurses. Illustrating males as nurses and females as physicians through pictures and videos in the ED may be one way to break down stereotypes from society on nontraditional career gender roles. Further research must be undertaken to understand the implications of implicit gender biases on patient satisfaction, patient compliance, physician burnout, compassion fatigue, and job satisfaction, among other issues. Medical school education, residency training, and continued medical education can create awareness of these issues in the medical field so that attendings and residents are better equipped to mediate such patient gender biases in the future.

Of the 150 subjects surveyed, 78 of patients were female and 72 were male. Patients correctly recognized male doctors, both residents and attendings, as physicians 76% of the time and female doctors, both residents and attendings, as physicians 71.3% of the time.

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