Hello, I'm
Kiki Lombarts
professor professional performance AMC
An introduction
The common thread through my working life can be summarized as 'doctors and quality'. Or more specifically, the quality of (the functioning of) medical specialists. For more than 30 years I have been researching, following, advising and guiding them. I talk with and about doctors, watch them and sometimes keep an eye on them. It keeps me fascinated.
On this website I tell you more about it and you can read what it has yielded (my performance), what occupies me now (my news ) and what I am working on (my agenda)..
Nieuwtjes...
Great, finally a male perspective on the discussion about the performance of male and female doctors. None other than dr Bert Keizer, physician and philosopher, opens his column in the Dutch newspaper Trouw with an intriguing scenario, presented in the title: The nightmare of a man with prostate problems is a female doctor. With his sharp and humorous voice, he discusses the interview with me published earlier (see December 18th) in the NTvG. I am happy with his support and critical reflections.
As with many, my new year started with a phone full of messages. On January 1st, I received many good wishes for 2024 from family and friends. But today, January 2nd, it was mainly reactions to a big interview in the AD about women and female qualities in healthcare.
Large clinical studies show that female patients are 'better off' if they are helped by a female medical specialist; this has been demonstrated for surgeons (based on research into 25 different surgical procedures), cardiologists (study of patients who present with a heart attack at the emergency department) and internists (research into 8 most common internal diagnoses). 'Better off' means hard patient outcomes such as fewer complications, fewer readmissions and lower mortality rates. The studies I refer to are done with American, Canadian and Swedish data. Sometimes the differences between male and female doctors are large and (also clinically) relevant, other times small, but always significant and consistent in favor of women.
Yet the question is not a men-versus-women issue. We do need to (want to) investigate what can be learned from the observed differences. For men and women. And also the unequal appreciation of male versus female qualities is more than worth discussing. Why? Because all human qualities are important for being able to provide good patient care. I spoke about these topics with AD journalist Ellen van Gaalen. It became a page-wide story (in Dutch). On January 3rd, the interview appeared in Het Parool.
NPO1 radio picked up the article and talked about it further in the Fact & Fiction section (EenVandaag). Listen here.