Paper Title
The Prevalence Of Surgeon Gender Preference For Female Patients In Surgery And OB/GYN

Abstract
The effect of religious teachings had a major impact on the health care system and social lifestyles. Although the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the largest and most religious Muslim countries, there has been no research questioning the effect of this on the female patient's physician gender preference and are those preferences based on religious, psychological or social reasons.The aim of this study is to assess the bases of female patients� preference when it comes to choosing the surgeon�s or obstetrician gender. This is descriptive cross-sectional study distributed for 405 female patients, age from 18 and above in Jeddah. Outcome of this study measure the preference of surgeon gender in surgical and obstetrician producer, patients attitude in emergency case toward surgeons gender and the impact of religion or social life in choosing surgeons gender. There was (41.98%) of subjects who prefer male in surgery. If the preferred surgeon gender is not available in case of a surgical emergency, most subjects (88.4 %) stated they would go with the available gender. On the other hand, (9.4%) would change the hospital, and (2.2%) completely refuse the surgery regardless of their critical situation. In obstetrics and gynecology clinics, most preferred female obstetricians (45.68%). There was significant relationship between the influence of society in taking decision and participants� preference toward surgeon gender (P-value = 0.031), and gynecologist gender (p-value <0.001). Also, there was significant relationship between the influence of religion and participants� preference toward surgeon gender (p-value <0.001), and gynecologist gender (p-value <0.001).In conclusion, females in Saudi Arabia prefer male surgeons, but prefer female gynecologist.These findings are very important to highlights as they may jeopardize patient safety for a significant percentage of Saudi female.