Life

Texas Doctor Apologizes For Saying Female Physicians Don’t Work As Hard

By Corey O'Brien

Posted on September 3, 2018

A Texas doctor is apologizing for telling a medical journal that his female colleagues get paid less because they don’t work as hard. Dr. Gary Tigges made the remarks in this month’s Dallas Medical Journal, saying the reason for the wage gap is that “Female physicians do not work as hard and do not see as many patients as male physicians”, adding that “their priority is something else.” Needless to say, Twitter isn’t having it.

This is Dr. Gary Tigges. Internal Medicine in Plano Texas. He is a sexist misogynist and a disgrace to our profession. These are his views recently published in the Dallas Medical Journal. Let’s make him [email protected] pic.twitter.com/z9GllpkR5Q

— Faizah Bhatti (@faizahbhatti) September 1, 2018

If anyone knows Dr. Gary Tigges in Plano, TX, please tell him that he’s just pissed off a few thousand HARD WORKING women physicians. Because, you know, quotes like this tend to get shared a lot on social media. pic.twitter.com/IxmQ1yRoVS

— Alethea Allen, MD (@AletheaAllen) September 1, 2018

@texashealth this comment by one of your staff members Dr Gary Tigges is offensive to all working women. RT if you agree @TMLT_TMIC should withdraw all advertising $ from DMJ #genderbias #genderdiscrimination @PROWDWomen @womenirads @drnikkistamp https://t.co/XWfw7YeFyG

— Susan O'Horo, MD (@skohoro) September 1, 2018

The power of #SoMe -the backlash from Dr.Gary Tigges misogynist statement led to 1) him taking down twitter account 2) widespread outrage 3) extensive media coverage @HuffPost @thehill @washingtonpost @MailOnline @USATODAY @dallasnews @IBTimes @Newsweek https://t.co/zXbbjwms78 pic.twitter.com/NotdIbOwjl

— Diane Radford MD (@DianeRadfordMD) September 3, 2018

The comments caused an outrage on social media and now Dr. Tigges is apologizing, saying that his comments were taken out of context and that he didn’t know they would be published. According to recent data, female doctors in the U.S. earn about 27.7 percent less than male doctors – a difference that means about $105,000 a year.