Exploring women's strong preference for women surgeons in breast healthcare.

BACKGROUND: This study challenges the prevalent belief that surgical roles demand masculine traits, potentially limiting women's suitability for such positions. Contrary to this stereotype, we explored the hypothesis that in sensitive surgical procedures, where communal traits are valued, women patients might favor women surgeons. Two experimental studies investigated women's preferences for a man versus a woman surgeon in a breast exam and breast surgery. METHODS: In two studies we experimentally tested women's preferences for a man versus a woman surgeon for a breast exam (a noninvasive and non-complicated procedure), and breast surgery (an invasive and more complicated procedure). Study 2 delved into factors influencing these preferences, including patients' age, stereotypical perceptions of women surgeons as communal/warm, past negative experiences with men and women doctors, and previous body-related trauma. RESULTS: Women consistently preferred a woman surgeon for both procedures and expressed increased willingness to wait for an appointment with a woman surgeon. However, this preference was less pronounced for surgery than for an exam. Study 2 identified the stereotypical perception of women surgeons as communal/warm as the strongest predictor for this preference, along with previous negative experiences with men doctors and age. CONCLUSIONS: While some gender bias persists, this study underscores a notable preference for women surgeons in intimate medical services like breast exams or surgery. This preference holds practical implications for healthcare providers encouraging women's preventive checkups and offers insights for women medical students making residency choices.

Gender bias in the evaluation of interns in different medical specialties: An archival study.

INTRODUCTION: The field of medicine is characterized by within-field gender segregation: Gender ratios vary systematically by subdisciplines. This segregation might be, in part, due to gender bias in the assessment of women and men medical doctors. METHODS: We examined whether the assessments, i.e. overall score, department scores and skills scores, interns receive by their superiors during their internship year, vary as a function of their gender and the representation of women in the field. We analyzed an archival data set from a large hospital in Israel which included 3326 assessments that were given to all interns who completed their internship year between 2015 and 2019. RESULTS: Women received lower department scores and skills scores in fields with a low (versus high) representation of women. Men received higher scores in fields with a high (versus low) representation of men, yet there was no difference in their skills scores. CONCLUSIONS: Women are evaluated more negatively in fields with a low representation of women doctors. Similarly, men are evaluated more negatively in fields with a low representation of men, yet this cannot be explained by their skills. This pattern of results might point to a gender bias in assessments. A better understanding of these differences is important as assessments affect interns' career choices and options.

High capacity clinical SARS-CoV-2 molecular testing using combinatorial pooling.

BACKGROUND: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic led to unprecedented testing demands, causing major testing delays globally. One strategy used for increasing testing capacity was pooled-testing, using a two-stage technique first introduced during WWII. However, such traditional pooled testing was used in practice only when positivity rates were below 2%. METHODS: Here we report the development, validation and clinical application of P-BEST - a single-stage pooled-testing strategy that was approved for clinical use in Israel. RESULTS: P-BEST is clinically validated using 3636 side-by-side tests and is able to correctly detect all positive samples and accurately estimate their Ct value. Following regulatory approval by the Israeli Ministry of Health, P-BEST was used in 2021 to clinically test 837,138 samples using 270,095 PCR tests - a 3.1fold reduction in the number of tests. This period includes the Alpha and Delta waves, when positivity rates exceeded 10%, rendering traditional pooling non-practical. We also describe a tablet-based solution that allows performing manual single-stage pooling in settings where liquid dispensing robots are not available. CONCLUSIONS: Our data provides a proof-of-concept for large-scale clinical implementation of single-stage pooled-testing for continuous surveillance of multiple pathogens with reduced test costs, and as an important tool for increasing testing efficiency during pandemic outbreaks.

Testing samples for SARS-CoV-2 is usually done on one sample at a time. However, the unprecedented demand for testing during the COVID-19 pandemic led to the adoption of pooled testing strategies, where samples are combined before being tested. This strategy requires two rounds: first, each pool of samples is tested, and then a second testing round is performed on individual samples from positive pools. We developed and implemented a pooling method for SARS-CoV-2 that requires a single round of testing, thus enabling the shorter turnaround times required during a pandemic. The method was approved for clinical use in Israel and was used to successfully test 837,138 clinical samples using fewer than a third of the tests usually required. Our study provides a blueprint for rapid implementation of efficient high-throughput testing in future pandemics.