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A couple of years ago, I asked a friend of mine how she met her husband. It was at a bar, and when she asked his occupation he replied, “I work for the city.” She took that to mean he was a construction worker. They began dating and quickly fell in love. Much to her surprise about a month into their relationship, she learned he actually played for the NFL team in their city.

Two nights ago, I had the pleasure of having dinner with two very pretty surgical residents. As they are both single, the conversation quickly turned towards the “single life” here in our city. One began to tell me she uses dental hygienist as her go-to occupation when meeting men, while the other uses flight attendant. I have to admit, the flight attendant bit is pretty genius – it actually explains our crazy schedules pretty well!

But as I thought about this more and more, I realized that I hadn’t been surprised that they come up with alternative careers for themselves when they meet men for the first time. I wasn’t surprised, because I too, operate under the assumption that although NFL players might want to hide their occupation because of too much interest, we female physicians hide ours because of lack of interest.

But it isn’t just me that thinks male and female physicians are viewed very differently on the dating scene. Think about it. On Grey’s Anatomy, you had Dr. McDreamy and then came Dr. McSteamy. But where was all the fanfare for the Dr. McFoxy or Dr. McHotties on the show?

So, in an effort to enlighten the public, I am going to list my top 8 reasons for why anyone and everyone should date or marry a female physician (and yes, this includes surgeons!). For all my Dr. McHotties out there, this is for you!!

1. We know CPR.

Someone once gave me the advice to marry the person you want to be in the trenches with. In other words, when the s&%^ is hitting the fan, who do you want next to you, being your partner, and getting you through the hard times? So, why not be with someone who knows how to save your life, literally?

2. We understand hard work.

Whether it is gaining admittance into medical school, suffering through Histology, placing into a residency, or working for 30 hours straight without sleep, we know what hard work looks like, because we have done it. Marriage, at times, can require a lot of work, and trust me, you want a partner who will work as hard as you in ensuring each other’s happiness.

3. We handle stress well and multi-task like pros.

Your in-laws have stayed too long, the baby is screaming, the cable is out, the game is on, and who knows what your firstborn is doing, wait, why is there water coming from underneath the bathroom door? Well, the saying in my house is, “At least no one is bleeding”. And then, if someone is bleeding, expect to hear, “No worries, all bleeding stops.” Because it really is true, all bleeding does stop, and we understand this. Stopping a bathroom flood in comparison to stopping a bleeding subclavian artery or delivering a baby with an umbilical cord around its neck? Cake walk.

4. We are financially viable.

You may make more money than us, we may make more than you. Guess what? We don’t care. You should appreciate that we can help our family and will always have a job. Life is unpredictable. If you lose your job or become disabled or want to go back to school, you won’t have to worry about how your family will eat or be clothed. Think outside the box, guys, it is your family’s income and stability that matters, and we will always be able to help.

5. We are smart.

Um, duh. If you can’t understand the benefits of being married to an intelligent woman, then I can’t help you. I don’t do brain transplants.

6. We have good personalities.

Being a doctor isn’t just being a good technician. We have to sell ourselves and our skills to our patients. We have to engender trust from strangers, which requires a good “bedside manner”, ie a good personality!

7. We tend to be low maintenance.

When you have slept in bunk beds in your late twenties and lived off of the most likely expired peanut butter and graham crackers found in the dark recesses of random cabinets, high maintenance really isn’t in our vocabulary. We don’t expect limos and hot air balloons on dates. Just show up and have food served at something other than room temperature and you are way ahead in the game!

8. We have a unique perspective on life.

We take care of sick people, we have witnessed the moments that Death has come to take our patients away, and we have comforted those left behind. When this is how you spend your days, we are much less likely to give you hell over forgetting to pick up your underwear off the floor.

Although, for real, pick up your damn underwear 🙂

McHotties rule!
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I am a doctor’s wife. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to saying that, but I admit, I like it.

First, for some background: When I met and fell in love with my husband, Dave, he was not a doctor. He was considering medical school, but had not applied or been accepted, and he wasn’t even sure it was what he really wanted to do.

MY point: I didn’t fall in love with a doctor, nor was I looking to.

I fell in love with Dave’s quiet strength, I was drawn to his spiritual convictions, and I was enamored of his breadth of gifts and talents (it didn’t hurt that he was really good looking). We met and married fairly quickly, then not long after we got married, he was accepted into medical school. Then, he (we) survived four years of medical school in Oregon, and then three years of residency here in Hawaii. After residency, Dave was offered a job here on Oahu as a Hospitalist almost ten years ago.

Now I am proud of what my husband does. As a physician, Dave’s greatest qualities are put to use: his intelligence, his compassion and his ability to stay cool under pressure.

Dave is also very humble. He will know someone for years, and avoid bringing up the topic of his profession. He doesn’t want people to assume things, or be awkward in any way. He just thinks of himself as a normal guy.

But over time, I have been surprised, and slightly entertained, as people have admitted to me their assumptions about doctors, or what it is like to be married to one. There are a few consistent questions people ask me about, and I thought it would be fun to address those!

Side note: Obviously, I can’t speak for everyone. Some doctor’s wives may have very different experiences, so I can only speak for myself.

The five most common assumptions about being a doctor’s wife:

1. We never have to go to a doctor’s office, because we have our own doctor at home.
Not true. We see doctors, just like everyone else. For one, my kids and I see doctors because my husband does not specialize in everything, and does not want to misdiagnose something that I specialist should see. Secondly, we see doctors because my husband tends to not be home at the times when we most need a doctor! It never fails, if a kid is going to break an arm, cut open his face or come down with a weird rash — their dad will be (you guessed it) working at the hospital. So I usually call him, and sometimes send him iPhone photos, and it never fails, he says to go to the doctor.

Truth.

It is true that there are times that Dave is home at just the right time, and we have skipped many a trip to the ER because he could rule out infection, cancer (that’s me — everything is cancer) and so on. He has superglued a few cuts, and he even (warning — this one is “personal”) performed O.B. checks on me to see how far dilated my cervix was while I was laboring with one of my four kids, because it was middle of the night, and he did NOT want to go to the hospital and miss his sleep if he didn’t have to (T.M.I.?).

2. He can prescribe us medicine anytime we want/need it.

I wish!

The law says no, and Dave obeys the law. If I need a prescription — even for the little stuff, I do like everyone else and call my doctor. Sorry if that is so disappointing.

It is true that Dave often has a good idea what we need, and can make educated recommendations to our individual doctors, which is nice. Knowing that a husband/father can do their own medical research and be involved in our medical treatment offers peace of mind.

It just doesn’t always save me at least a phone call to the doctor’s office. Hmph!

3. I go shopping all of the time, and we hang out at country clubs.

In other words — we’re all rich.

Um, no. Once again, sorry if this ruins any fantasies, but nope nope nope. Some medical specialists do make great money, and others make okay money. But the fact is, if you are like most of us, you come out of medical school and residency with enough student loans to last a lifetime. Literally. Most women I know married to family doctors have to work outside the home as well to make ends meet (at least here in Hawaii, where the cost of living is insanely high).

I do wish I could go shopping all of the time. But no. And Country Clubs? Dave would rather do just about anything else.

It is true that a good doctor does have job security. Meaning, this world will always need doctors. In fact, I encourage any young person who is interested in the medical/health care field to go for it. Just don’t do it to get rich. I’m pretty sure that there are easier ways to get rich –like blogging! Haha, joke.

4. Because I am married to a doctor, you can ask me just about any medical question, and I should be able to help you.

Ha! This is funny, but it really does happen all the time. I actually kind of enjoy it — and I love to pretend I know what the heck I’m talking about! But truth is — we wives don’t learn medicine by osmosis, and I don’t have five percent of my husband’s brains. Do yourself a favor and call a real doctor.

It is true that I studied Sports Medicine in College, and that I helped Dave study in medical school by reading his medical textbooks out loud while he drove us all over the state of Oregon (which put me to sleep every single time) so I might have picked up a thing or two. But probably just enough to be wickedly dangerous.

5. I never see my husband because he is working constantly, and just doesn’t have time for the family.

I’m so thankful that this is another no — it’s not true at all! Once again, this is a serious issue with many medical specialties (thinking surgeons especially) but not for us. Dave considered many factors (family, sleep, surfing) when he choose his specialty, and I am forever grateful. His particular schedule provides him a lot of family time actually.

It is true that Dave works many holidays, and does have at least one all-night shift a month. But in light of all of his time off, I cannot complain (well, sometimes I still complain, but I shouldn’t).

It is also true that residency sucked. And medical school too. I was alone a lot. We were poor. I raised my first three kids for a few years mostly as a single mom. I thought I might die, but we survived, and — thank God! — those years are over.

There is plenty more I could say, but I leave it at five for now. A follow-up post may be needed. IF I did not address any of your thoughts/questions, feel free to throw those out there as well!

The male gynecologist can be a polarizing figure: Some women avoid them as a personal policy, while others actively seek them out. Regardless of your stance, though, they’re becoming a rare breed. Nationally, 80% to 90% of people graduating in OB/GYN are women; and at NYU School of Medicine, approximately one out of seven OB/GYN residents are male. But what motivates those who do choose this female-dominated — and female-focused — field?

We asked ten male gynecologists, ages 30 to 70, about how they ended up in the vagina-care business.

“Better patients.”
Covering emergency room at 3 a.m. during medical school, I saw a guy sitting on the examining table. I said, “What’s the problem?” He responded, “There’s no problem. My wife thinks I’m having a heart attack. But there’s no problem.” He probably was having a heart attack (I never found out), but the point is … women are better patients than men. They have no qualms about telling us what’s wrong with them, and therefore we can do what we need to do to get them better. With women, it’s like, “Give me the information, and take my advice.” That system works pretty well. And it’s very satisfying to make people better.

“I’m kind of freaked out by death.”
It might sound strange coming from a doctor, but I’m kind of freaked out by sickness and death. Becoming an OB/GYN translated into life and family and the beauty of humanity for me. There’s so much hope in my office, not much doom and gloom! Of course, it’s not always a picnic. My female friends in medical school said examining women was “too smelly,” which of course can be a factor, but in general, women take excellent care of themselves, and it’s a great privilege talking to them about health and wellness all day long. I’d like to think it’s not a factor, but because I’m gay, perhaps there’s an added layer of trust. All my patients try to fix me up. I’ll be giving a pap and someone will say, “You want to meet my kid’s drama teacher?”

“Women’s health care is far superior.”
I don’t care what they say: Women’s health care is far superior than men’s health care, and I wanted in. (Well, menopause treatment was one of the biggest medical blunders of all time, and no one has ever apologized for it, but other than that … ) The top cancers that get women — breast, colon, cervix, ovarian, uterine — we can prevent four out of the five of those. If you come in often enough and take all the preventable measures, you can find things, and you can fix them … almost always.

“I grew up with six sisters.”
I did both an MD and PhD in med school and found OB/GYN and reproductive endocrine ripe for research. It is also generally “happy medicine,” one where I can make a huge impact on the patient and her family. It is also a great field where there is a combination of medicine and surgery with favorable outcomes. Finally, I grew up with six sisters, and so I was used to having my life revolve around estrogen, ovulation, and hormones.

“I’ve had patients hit on me.”
Of all the specialties in med school, I was sure gynecology was the one I wouldn’t want. As a straight male, I didn’t want to ruin my love of the vagina. Years into it now, I’m never more professional than I am with a patient. The vagina is so desensitized to me, I hardly notice anything about it. But if a woman is attractive, I do have to fight that part of my brain. I’d be lying if I said otherwise. I’ve had patients legitimately hit on me — one immediately after her abortion, and another right after a pelvic exam.

“A great honor.”
I was raised and surrounded by very strong women, I married a really strong woman, and I have so much respect for the issues that make women special. I loved the idea of being involved in meaningful parts of women’s lives — their sexual health, reproductive health, abortion care, walking them through their childbearing years, dealing with cancer. The female body is a metaphor for her womanhood, and I am granted access to her whole identity. That’s a great honor.

“The miracle of birth.”
My buddy laughs when he recalls his med-school days. He’s a goofy guy endlessly stuck in adolescence. He always says he was thinking of OB/GYN so he could do breast exams all day. Fortunately, he ended up in neurology! I went into it for the miracle of giving birth … that never gets old.

“I chose half the human race.”
I was originally in internal medicine, but that was right when doctors were beginning to “specialize,” and I couldn’t find six inches of the body to specialize in. Instead, I chose half the human race. Plus, I like women better than men. I’m not a sports guy. I gravitate to female conversation. The only caveat is I have no style.

“I worried I’d have no patients.”
I was nervous about being a young, male gynecologist. Frankly, I worried I’d have no patients. But I’ve learned that some women still prefer male doctors, and it’s not for the reasons you might think. They say men are more sensitive on average, more responsive to their concerns. I’ve heard that men are better at pelvic exams because we’re so terrified of causing discomfort that we’re obsessively gentle. Male doctors are less dismissive of a woman’s problems because everything sounds so terrifying and horrifying to us since we don’t go through it. Like, tell us your period is heavy and we feel awful about it! There are people who aren’t allowed to have a male doctor … mostly Muslim … and teenage girls and young women who have not yet had a baby are more likely to want a female … but once a woman has pushed out a kid, it’s like, “Who gives a crap?!” From a recruiting perspective, male gynecologists are a minority, and programs are interested in us — straight men in particular — to reinforce the notion that men still belong in the field, and it’s not just women-to-women care that matters. Focusing on women-to-women care superimposes that there’s a sexual element there, and that makes us think of medicine the wrong way.

“I didn’t like surgeons.”
During third year of med school we all rotated though the various specialties. I loved surgery but didn’t like the surgeons. I loved medicine but didn’t like the old patients and chronic conditions that never seemed to be cured. I hated pediatrics, mostly because of the annoying parents of healthy kids! But OB/GYN was unexpectedly fun. The doctors were all very affable, and some were actually funny. The patients were more healthy than not, and delivering babies was just about the coolest thing ever. I really bonded with two or three docs, and they became my mentors for the rest of my career.

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