Stanton et al ^{Reference Stanton, Sethi, Dale, Phelan, Laban and Eliahoo1} present an interesting paper looking at the comparative analysis of emotional intelligence between psychiatrists and surgeons, but what I really want to know is whether there was any evidence of a difference in constituents (subscales) of emotional intelligence between genders? The reason I am raising this question is because there are gender differences found for the main factors that comprise emotional intelligence. ^{Reference Sánchez-Núñez, Fernández-Berrocal, Montañés and Latorre2} More specifically, women are more aware of their emotions, show more empathy, relate better interpersonally, and act in a more socially responsible manner than men. On the other hand, men appear to have better self-regard, are more independent, solve problems better, are more flexible, and cope better with stress. ³

This is of great relevance seeing that there was a clear evidence of imbalance of gender distribution in Stanton et al’s study: there were more female psychiatrists (39%) as compared with female surgeons (17%). This raises the possibility of a bias in relation to differences detected among psychiatrists and surgeons in the component factors that make up the total emotional intelligence. It is possible that a proportion of these differences detected among the two groups could be accounted for by gender imbalance. Future studies are needed to address this issue.