By Marc Ramirez
The Dallas Morning News
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) Dr. Gary Tigges made the controversial comment in response to a report that reveals female doctors earn about two-thirds the salary of their male counterparts.
The Dallas Morning News
A Plano physician who came under fire for comments published in the Dallas Medical Journal has stepped down from his leadership roles at Texas Health Plano.
Gary Tigges, an independent physician who practices internal medicine at Plano Internal Medicine Associates, drew widespread criticism for saying female doctors are paid less because they don’t work as hard — remarks he insists were misconstrued and that he did not know would be made public.
He has since publicly apologized.
Tigges’ resignation from his roles on the executive committee of Texas Health Plano’s medical board and as chair of the hospital’s credentialing committee were announced to employees in a message from hospital president Josh Floren, Texas Health spokesman Stephen O’Brien said.
“This past weekend we learned of comments that Dr. Gary Tigges made to the Dallas Medical Journal regarding physician pay inequities between the genders, which spread quickly on social media,” Floren wrote. “His remarks were and remain extremely divisive and have caused a great deal of hurt and concern among the medical staff, the Dallas-Fort Worth medical community and the entire country.”
Floren said the comments “do not reflect the opinion or values of Texas Health Resources or Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Plano.”
Tigges made the comments in response to a questionnaire focusing on a report indicating that female doctors earn about two-thirds the salary of their male counterparts.
The questionnaire asked members of the Dallas County Medical Society whether they believed such a pay gap existed, what the cause was and what physicians could do about it.
“Yes, there is a pay gap,” Tigges wrote. “Female physicians do not work as hard and do not see as many patients as male physicians. This is because they choose to, or they simply don’t want to be rushed, or they don’t want to work the long hours. Most of the time, their priority is something else. … Family, social, whatever.”
“Nothing needs to be ‘done’ about this unless female physicians actually want to work harder and put in the hours,” he continued. “If not, they should be paid less. That is fair.”
Tigges later said that he didn’t stand by the comments in the context in which they were printed but that he based them on data he’d read showing female doctors often earn less because they see fewer patients or work fewer hours because of family or other obligations. He said he didn’t mean to imply that women should earn less for equal work.