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Leon Eisenberg, MD

JAMA. 1989;261(16):2401.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

The two articles on physicians' marriages in this issue of THE JOURNAL appear, at first blush, to be contradictory. Doherty and Burge¹ report a careful statistical analysis of 1970 and 1980 census data; they conclude that male as well as female physicians are less likely to divorce than other employed Americans of the same sex, including those in other professions. Gabbard and Menninger² report on 11 years of experience with male physicians and their spouses who participated in family workshops; they conclude that physicians' compulsive personality traits result in a "strategy of postponement," an avoidance of intimacy, and serious, if covert, marital discord. How are we to reconcile these findings? Can both be right?

The two studies differ in sampling frame and in methodology. Doherty and Burge employ a national database that yields large unbiased samples of physicians, some 15 000 for 1970 and some 86 000 for . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
Harvard Medical School Boston, Mass

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