There has been some tendency historically for these professions to draw bright, working class women. In nursing especially, initial training and socialization was more of an apprenticeship than a cognitive, technical sort of education. With different kinds of education and from different class backgrounds, doctors talked down to nurses in part because of the difference in the nature and origins of their skilled knowledge. As nursing has become more sophisticated and intellectual, there has continued to be a difference of knowledge emphasis compared to medicine. From the beginning, nurses built their knowledge of patients from talking to them at length on the hospital ward and developing an empathic understanding of their whole life situations.
Medical knowledge emphasizes rational, logical, scientific ways of knowing.
All bodies are seen as essentially the same, recognizing that human variation is an important aspect. The emphasis of knowledge is on generalizations that apply to all bodies. However, the medical model treats patients as physiologically interchangeable, so that the context and interpersonal complexities of patients' lives have relatively minor implications for care. Physicians generally have short interviews with patients lasting less that 20 minutes or so. Nursing knowledge emphasizes viewing and understanding patients' problems in relationship to the whole context of their lives.