'I Know Because I Am One': Statuses and Roles as Sources of Expertise Among Obstetrician-Gynecologists.

Present-day physicians have generally been critiqued for not gathering a complete picture of their patient's health, but rather, for narrowly focusing on the medical aspects. In particular, obstetrician-gynecologists (ob-gyn's) are often unfavorably compared to midwives. With their scientific training, ob-gyn's are held to understand pregnancy and childbirth in mechanistic ways, in contrast to midwives who utilize a more holistic framework. In this paper, I argue that this dichotomous framework is too simplistic and that we need to examine variations in beliefs among ob-gyn's. Based on 40 in-depth interviews, I find that while they do rely on the scientific model, obstetrician-gynecologists - particularly female ob-gyn's - draw upon non-scientific training as a source of professional expertise. Many women ob-gyn's draw upon their experiences based upon their social statuses and roles as women in contemporary American society - or what I term "social empathy." I highlight two types of social empathy: that based on women's relationship to reproductive health matters and on women's balancing of work and family. I conclude by discussing the implications of my findings in regards to the education of physicians and the theories of the professions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]