The Interplay of the Regulatory System and Personal Beliefs on Physicians’ Practices

• In Event: 343 - Section on Medical Sociology Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 04. Clinical Decision Making

Abstract

In both Germany and the U.S., there are non-binding professional guidelines that relate to the treatment of lesbians and single women, although the content of these guidelines is opposite: in Germany, the guidelines forbid treatment of these women, whereas in the US the guidelines allow it. The question explored in this paper is how doctors integrate the regulatory context with their own personal beliefs in making treatment decisions. By conducting in-depth interviews with 27 physicians in Germany and the United States, I examine the ways in which physicians’ views of non-traditional families map onto their willingness to treat lesbians and single women who are attempting to conceive. Given the ethos of individualism that pervades the United States, one might presume that doctors in America emphasize their own moral values in making decisions more so than in Germany. Thus, I expected to find that doctors’ beliefs and treatment decisions in the United States would exhibit more consistency than in Germany. However, my findings indicate that the opposite is in fact the case: the doctors I interviewed in Germany make treatment decisions following their personal beliefs about families, specifically whether lesbian and single-women’s childbearing is appropriate, whereas my physician respondents in the US follow the guideline to treat these patients of their personal beliefs. By exploring physicians’ views on LGBT families, parenting, and gender roles, I attempt to disentangle the impact of regulatory structure from that of personal beliefs in treatment decisions.

Author

• Alicia J. VandeVusse, University of Chicago