REPLY
When Doctors Marry Doctors
C. Seth Landefeld, MD
19 October 1999 | Volume 131 Issue 8 | Pages 631-632
IN RESPONSE:
We appreciate Dr. Rollman's interest in our work and agree that readers ought not to generalize inappropriately from our data. Nonetheless, we reemphasize that young doctors married to other doctors differed substantially from their peers in many characteristics of their professional and family lives. Moreover, these differences were most marked for female physicians. The findings reported in our original paper and those of our subsequent analyses are consistent with the hypothesis that parenting triggers marked changes in professional and family roles for many physicians and that these changes may be greatest for female physicians married to physicians. Longitudinal studies would be especially useful for further clarifying the roles of gender, spouse, and children in choices young physicians make about their professional and family lives, as Dr. Rollman suggests.
Our goal was to determine differences among physicians, not to compare physicians with other professionals. We agree with Dr. Rollman that many of the issues we identified probably arise for other groups as well.
|
Author and Article Information
|
|---|
 Top
 Author & Article Info
|
|---|
University of California, San Francisco; San Francisco, CA 94121 (Landefeld)
About Letters
The Editors welcome submissions for possible publication in the Letters section. Authors of letters should:
•Include no more than 300 words of text, three authors, and five references
•Type with double-spacing
•Send three copies of the letter, an authors' form signed by all authors, and a cover letter describing any conflicts of interest related to the contents of the letter.
Letters commenting on an Annals article will be considered if they are received within 6 weeks of the time the article was published. Only some of the letters received can be published. Published letters are edited and may be shortened; tables and figures are included only selectively. Authors will be notified that the letter has been received. If the letter is selected for publication, the author will be notified about 3 weeks before the publication date. Unpublished letters cannot be returned.
Annals welcomes electronically submitted letters.
Article
