Las médicas, sus prácticas y el dilema de la feminidad.

Abstract

With the aim of studying how personal and professional life interact in young female doctors in Spain, we have analysed three groups that practice three of the most feminized specialties –general medicine, paediatrics, and psychiatry–, applying a gender perspective and a group methodology. For the analysis we identify a series of categories that are present in the three groups and that in the bibliography are related with the medical practice of women. In the professionals of our study, contradictions and ambivalent feelings show up when related to their communicative style at office, to the negotiation with colleges and patients, to their position before authority and power, and to the performance of their professional roles. In the group discourse of female doctors we identify the existence of a conflict between their identity as professionals and their identity as women.