Waterford — In choosing a family physician — a doctor who specializes in the treatment of children and adults and just about any illness that might afflict them over the course of their lives — what should one consider?

Look at what a doctor’s patients say about her, Dr. Urielle Marseille said. Does she listen to her patients? Does she take them seriously?

How accessible is she? Does she return calls the same day they’re received?

At the same time, a doctor should invite questions about herself, Dr. Beth Allard added.

“If it’s not the right fit, that’s OK. Some patients like to be told what to do, others want minimal interaction," she said. "There’s this stereotype that if you’re a man, you go to a man; if you’re a woman, you go to a woman. That’s one stereotype that needs to be dispelled.”

Indeed, Marseille and Allard, members of an all-women family medicine practice here, treat males and females in roughly equal numbers, as do their colleagues, Dr. Rachelle Darout and nurse practitioner Mariane Pascale. The four women recently discussed their practice in a virtual roundtable.

Each of the doctors is assigned a medical assistant and a scheduler. Their Northeast Medical Group offices at 196 Parkway South, a Yale New Haven Health affiliate, also are staffed by a health care coordinator, two nurses and a phlebotomist. All told, 17 people work in the office.

All of them are women.

Darout, who joined the practice in 2016, recalled it started with two women doctors who shared a receptionist with the cardiology practice at the same location. Allard joined in 2019 and Pascale in 2020. Marseille arrived last August.

At this point, only Marseille is accepting new patients.

While they haven’t sought out all-women situations during their careers and have plenty of experience in male-dominated settings, all four women have come to believe practices like theirs can be especially effective. They base that belief on the number of people who want to see them and the feedback their patients provide.

“What they tell us is that we listen,” Darout said. “We take our time and we let them talk.”

Some patients’ concerns may sound minor, “but they’re not to them,” Pascale said. “They may just need someone to sit down and listen to them.”

Marseille said women choose a specialty based on their interest and the quality of life they want. She said women and men are equally successful in specialties other than family medicine.

Allard, who earned both a doctorate and a medical degree at Brown University and was first interested in being a researcher rather than a clinician, said women more readily choose to communicate with one another and “have a natural ability to talk through the process better.”

A native of Haiti, Marseille said she wanted to become a family physician so that she eventually can return to her homeland and treat “everyone from 2 to 95 years old.” She said that while she wasn’t looking to join an all-female practice after completing a male-dominated residency, she was attracted by the fact that Darout also is Haitian.

When she met the others in the practice and they sent her “welcome to Waterford” greetings, “that sealed the deal,” she said.

Darout was working in Massachusetts when she accepted the job in Waterford, an opportunity for her to move closer to her New Jersey roots and serve members of the sizable Haitian community in the Norwich area.

Pascale said she wanted to be a nurse at 4 years old and can’t imagine being anything else.

In recent decades, women have come to represent a greater percentage of all doctors, a trend that’s expected to continue. In 1990, women made up 11% of the physician workforce, a share that increased to 24% in 2000 and to more than 30% in 2010.

In 2017, an Athenahealth survey of 18,000 physicians found that more than 60% of those under the age of 35 were female. That same year, for the first time in history, women made up more than half of all students enrolled in medical schools.

Since 2016, National Women Physicians Day has been celebrated on Feb. 3, the birthday of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, who in 1849 became the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States.

Allard said that upon moving to Connecticut, she was struck by the large percentage of male physicians and the relatively few women who occupied leadership positions. She said she’s always had a strong sense that women doctors support one another.

A University of Michigan study found that nearly 40% of women physicians scale back their practices or leave the medical profession altogether early in their careers, mostly to have and raise children.

"All of us as women physicians support maternity leave,” Allard said. “No one in this office would think twice about covering for each other.”

Such support is a major advantage of being in an all-women practice, said Darout, who has four children.

“They (children) do demand a lot of your time, I won’t lie,” she said. “Your patients get frustrated when they can’t see you. When I came back (from a maternity leave), some told me not to have any more children.”

She keeps good notes, she said, and her colleagues know what’s going on with one another’s patients and are able to maintain continuity of care.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the practice’s reliance on telemedicine — virtual communication between doctor and patient.

“It’s been great for the elderly, who have transportation problems,” Pascale said.

“Patients love it,” added Darout, who said the fact that medical insurance covers telemedicine all but ensures it's here to stay.

Allard said the pandemic unified the members of the practice, requiring them to monitor the broader health system and frequent changes in COVID-19 policies and protocols.

“Everybody thought they had omicron and couldn’t get tested,” she said. “We said, ‘We can help you. Don’t go to the emergency room if you’re not really sick.’ It gave us a greater sense of community.”

Marseille said the camaraderie among members of the practice extends beyond the office.

“Rachelle sends pictures of her kids and I’ve seen Beth’s family on vacation," she said. "Mariane’s talking about joining a hiking group in the spring. We haven’t all gone out to dinner yet, but ..."

"When you feel happy and supported at work," she said, "you do better.”

b.hallenbeck@theday.com