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Gendered patterns of professional misidentification among doctors in the NHS: a quantitative study
1Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Basingstoke, UK hinanhafiz@gmail.com.
Objectives:
To quantify gendered patterns of professional misidentification among hospital doctors.
Methods:
An anonymised cross-sectional survey of hospital doctors was conducted in February 2025 at Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital, a UK district general hospital. Respondents reported the frequency, source and type of misidentification, alongside perceived impact on workflow. Responses were analysed by gender using Fisher's exact test.
Results:
52 doctors responded (32 female, 20 male). All female respondents reported misidentification at least once (vs 75.0% of men, p=0.006) and were more often misidentified weekly to daily (81.2% vs 25.0%, p<0.001). All women reported being mistaken for nurses (vs 30.0%, p<0.001) and misidentified downward (vs 50.0%, p<0.001); men were more often misidentified upward (65.0% vs 25.0%, p=0.008). Elevating nicknames were more often directed at men (60.0% vs 18.8%, p=0.003). Misidentification disrupted workflow at least sometimes for 40.6% of women versus 5.0% of men (p=0.008).
Conclusions:
In this single-centre cohort, misidentification showed consistent, statistically significant gendered patterns-women downward, men upward-suggesting a broader pattern warranting investigation in larger, multicentre studies. Visible role-labelling, inclusive communication training and leadership modelling merit consideration and future evaluation.
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