Part three: Wives’ Influence on Male Physicians’ Locations of Medical Practice

Abstract

A major deficiency of the American health care system is the geographical maldistribution of physicians. Small towns and rural areas of large metropolitan areas have less than their share of physicians. This research is concerned with isolating a key factor associated with where, geographically, physicians are likely to locate their medical practices. Questionnaire data derived from the first six classes of a new medical school indicate that the influence of significant others, especially spouses, is a crucial factor in the location decision. Interviews with medical students and spouses amplify the nature of the interaction process through which the influence on decisions takes place. A major finding is the way in which the female spouse's desire for a career of her own and a good educational system for children limits the new male physician from choosing a small town or a large intercity area for his practice. Implications of this finding for the maldistribution of physicians, the dynamics of medical school socialization, and the place of physicians’ wives in family decision making are explored.

Notes

This research was supported in part from the National Research Support Grant No. 94365 at the Medical College of Ohio at Toledo. The author would like to express his appreciation to Michael McNamara, Jack Mulligan, Gigi Troup, Annie Wenger‐Keller, Juli Kahn, Mohan Garg, and especially Werner Gliebe for their assistance in collecting and coding the data reported in this manuscript.