FEMALE UROLOGY Gender Preferences for Urologists: Women Prefer Female Urologists Sun-Ouck Kim*, Taek Won Kang, Dongdeuk Kwon Purpose: To investigate patients’ preferences for the gender of their urologist. Materials and Methods: Patients who visited a urologic center were asked to complete a self-administered ques- tionnaire on the preferences for the gender of their urologist as well as on their age, education level and employ- ment status. Results: Of 270 respondents, 144 subjects (53%) had a preference for the gender of their urologist, whereas 126 subjects (47%) had no preference. Among 154 female respondents, 56 (36.4%) patients had no preference; 96 (62.3%) patients had preferences for female urologists; and only 2 (1.3%) patient preferred male urologists. Among 116 male respondents, 70 (60.3%) patients had no preference; 30 (25.9%) patients had preferences for male urologists; and 16 (13.8%) preferred female urologists. Of patients that did express a preference, 87.5% (126/144) preferred the same gender urologist, with 65.2% (30/46) of male patients preferring male urologists and 97.9% (96/98) of female patients preferring female urologists (p < .001). However, age and education level were not correlated with gender preference. Conclusion: More than half the female participants had a preference for the same gender of urologist, whereas the majority of male participants expressed no preference for the gender of their urologist. Furthermore, gender preference was not correlated with age and education level. Keywords: gender; preference; urologist. INTRODUCTION In Korea, urology remains a male-dominated profes-sion. However, in urology in Korea, the number of women applying for residency positions has increased over the recent years. In 2013, 7 of 235 urology res- idents (2.98 %) and 3 of 96 board certified urologists (3.13 %) were female. Many patients show preferences towards the gender of their health-care physician. For instance, some stud- ies have shown patients’ preferences for the gender of their doctors of different specialties including primary care medicine, gynecology and breast surgery.(1-3) In most previous studies, among patients who did have a preference for the gender of their physician, females were more likely to prefer the same gender doctor.(1-3) In another study, women were shown to prefer wom- en physicians for breast, genital, or anal examinations, because they feel that they would be less embarrassed with women.(1,4) However, on the contrary, there have been reports showing that the majority of patients have no preference for the gender of their doctors.(4-7) Because urology consultations usually include a pelvic examination, it is expected for female patients to prefer urologists of the same gender. Nowadays, patients have shown a growing interest in their choice of the gender of their urologist who will perform the urology exam- ination and treatment. Physician sensitivity to this is- sue is extremely important because gender preferences have been shown to possibly impact patients’ compli- ance with urology procedures. Tempest et al. identified whether patients in UK express preferences for the gen- der of their urologist and showed that the majority of patients had no preference.(6) We evaluated patients’ preference for the gender of their urologist according to occupation, age, education, and gender in Korea which is a country with a differ- ent cultural basis from European countries and with a smaller number of women urologists. Nowadays, an in- creasing number of female residents are working in the department of urology than ever before in Korea. This is the first analysis of gender preferences for urologists in our country, and this could be useful in estimating the potential future demand for female urologists. MATERIALS AND METHODS Study design The study was conducted from January 2015 to De- cember 2015 at outpatient urology clinics in Chonnam National University Hospital. Research staff gave ques- tionnaires to patients who visited urologic clinics. Most patients complained of voiding difficulty as the main symptom. After an interview with the investigator, pa- tients were orally instructed about study objectives and gave informed consent before completing the question- naire. Patients unwilling to complete the survey were excluded. Research staff was present to assist patients Department of Urology, Chonnam National University Medical School, Gwangju, Korea. *Correspondence: Department of Urology, Chonnam National University Hospital and Medical School 8, Hak-dong, Dong-ku, Gwangju #501-757, South Korea. Telephone: +82-62-220-6702. FAX: +82-62-227-1643. E-mail: seinsena@hanmail.net. Received July 2016 & Accepted January 2017 Female Urology 3018 with completion of the questionnaire if they could not read/write the Korean language. All participants pro- vided written informed consent with data collection and received approval from the local ethics committee and the institutional review board of Chonnam National University Hosptial. The procedure of this study com- plied with the guidelines provided by the Declaration of Helsinki. Questionnaire Patients were asked regarding their gender, age, oc- cupation and educational level. The question, “If you can choose the doctor at the medical consultation, who do you want to see?” gave three options for the gen- der preference of their urologist – male, female or no preference. Each patient was asked about their gender preference for who will perform the next urology med- ical treatment. Moreover, each patient was asked about their gender preference for who will perform their next urology surgical treatment. In total, 7 responses were required in the questionnaire (see APPENDIX). Statistics Statistical analysis of data was performed using SPSS 11.5 software, and differences in urologist-gender pref- erence were analyzed using the ≥2 tests and t-tests. Uni- variate analysis was used to study the independent ef- fect of different variables. For age, results are expressed as mean and standard error (±SE). A P value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Variables N(%) Gender Female 154 (57) Male 116 (43) Age (years) 20-29 34 (12.6) 30-39 70 (25.9) 40-49 48 (17.8) 50-59 50 (18.5) 60-69 68 (25.2) Education