Besides the incredibly silly stereotyping going on here (which unfortunately does not surprise me), it is the decided lack of solid reasoning (which again does not surprise) which causes me to respond
Please demonstrate (using facts instead of hyperbole) how an increase in women in medicine is the cause of a decline in "hard driving specialists". You give zero evidence to back up your statement, but provide ample evidence of another cause...skyrocketing malpractice costs.
Do you really believe that an cardiology specialist makes no more than the doctor at your local HMO. Get real. click here for salary info. It took less than 1 minute to find this information. If you don't like that survey try this one. Maybe you'll like this one.
Your last point (if there is indeed a point here) that women docs "just plain quit" if they marry another doc needs substantiation, which of course you studiously avoid providing.
The reason (IMHO) that we won't see your reasons added to the costs is because they're not reasons at all, just your own personal opinion/agenda. I think we have learned more about you from your post as opposed to being enlightened about anything having to do with the health care debate.
Women don't want to go there...hours and demands too high. Women now make up over 50% of new med school attendees. Women prefer the cushy office or quieter hospital specialties. Internist specialties, gasmen, that ever-lucrative opthalms. GS's don't make those big bucks, either. Neither do the neuros, who have mal premiums in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in some states to contend with. We already know what's happening to OBs who deliver babies...there's fewer.
Women docs often marry men docs, and when they do, they often retire "temporarily" to tend to children. Then can afford to--
Sterotyping? Perhaps. Just observing, and reading about the alarming drop in GSs. How many female general surgs do YOU know? I don't know any. How many lady anesthesiologists? I happen to know several.
I'll play some more stereotyping. Gen surgs are a particular personality type (so are neuros), an arrogant sort that aren't too feminine . Most loved they are when they sew you back together again, but are often abrasive in other contexts. And, no, I haven't the stats to back that up. Just some experience.
Ask your local hosp how easy it is lately to get new gen surgs on staff to answer emergency call.
How do you hide a ten-dollar bill from an orthopedic surgeon? (You hide it in his medical journals)
How do you hide a ten-dollar bill from a radiologist? (You hide it on the patient)
How do you hide a ten-dollar bill from a plastic surgeon? (You can't hide a ten-dollar bill from a plastic surgeon.)
It requires some familiarity with the various specialist sterotypes to laugh at such humor, but orthopods *are* known for disliking academics, just as internists *are* known for being compulsive anal-retentives, and women *are* known to prefer the tidier specialties such as radiology, anesthesiology, opthalmology the various internal medicine specialties.
If you need general surgeons, you need general surgeons. If half of the new medical school grads (women) veer away from that specialty, then there will be fewer general surgeons. Add to that other pressures, and there's no dressmaker (dressmaker?) waiting for you in the OR when you crash your car.