Understanding the interplay of time, gender and professionalism in hospital medicine in the UK

Regulation of time, management of gender equality and discourses of professionalism are often studied in isolation from one another in the context of hospital medicine. Drawing on qualitative analysis of 20 interviews with senior National Health Service (NHS) hospital doctors in Wales, UK, we demonstrate the complex interplay between professionalism and regulation of time and gender in hospital medicine. We examine the connectivity of gender and time in norms about professional behaviour in hospital medicine and demonstrate how a certain discourse of professionalism is used in turn to retain and reproduce a temporally regulated gender order at work. Based on our findings, and congruent with the spirit of modernisation of management of human resources in healthcare, we offer new directions for gender equality, regulation of time and development of professionalism in hospital medicine.