LCHE Seminar - When Female Doctors Fly In: Access to Female Physicians in Primary Care

The Lausanne Center for Health Economics, Behavior, and Policy (LCHE) regularly organizes seminars about Health Economics. More details on www.lche.ch.

Topic of the Seminar

When Female Doctors Fly In: Access to Female Physicians in Primary Care

Policies addressing physician shortages typically target aggregate supply, yet the composition of the local workforce may also determine which health needs get met. 

I study a program that periodically sends a visiting female general practitioner (GP) to rural Australian towns where all resident physicians are male, comparing each woman's consultations with the visiting GP to her own consultations with local male providers. 

The same woman is roughly four times as likely to receive genitourinary or hormonal prescriptions when consulting the female GP, against a baseline of 6 percent, and more than ten times as likely to be screened for cervical cancer, against a baseline of 1 percent. 

Consultations with the female GP are also nearly four times as likely to be long, while placebo visits to other male providers generate no comparable response. 

Complementary difference-in-differences estimates, which exploit variation in when the program began across towns, show that prescribing effects are concentrated among program users. 

The pattern is consistent with women raising hormonal and gynaecological concerns with the female GP that they are less likely to raise with local male providers.

Speaker

• MARTINA REPETTO
  FINAL-YEAR PHD CANDIDATE IN ECONOMICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

Martina Repetto is a final-year PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Melbourne. Her research lies at the intersection of health and labour economics, with a particular focus on gender differences and behavioural aspects. She is on the 2026–27 Economics Job Market.

Practical information

• Free admission
• No need to register
• This seminar is given in English
• This conference is possible on Teams or on site at Unisanté New building Valine  (Vennes)

About LCHE

The Lausanne Center for Health Economics, Behavior, and Policy (LCHE) at the University of Lausanne (UNIL) promotes research, teaching, and policy advice in the fields of health economics, behavior, and policy.

The interdisciplinary center brings together researchers of the Center for Primary Care and Public Health (Unisanté), the Faculty of Biology and Medicine (CHUV-FBM), and the Faculty of Business and Economics (HEC).