Patients treated by female doctors more likely to survive

Patients are more likely to survive if treated by a female doctor, new research suggests.

US researchers examined more than 775,000 medical insurance claims between 2016 and 2019, noting how many people had died within 30 days of being seen by a doctor.

The death rate for female patients was 8.15 per cent when treated by female physicians compared to 8.38 per cent when the physician was male.

It means that in every 1,000 patients treated, an extra two would be expected to survive if they were treated by a woman.

While the difference for male patients was smaller, female physicians still had the edge with a 10.15 per cent mortality rate compared with male doctors’ 10.23 per cent, a difference of around one death in a thousand.

The researchers found the same pattern for hospital readmission rates.

Female doctors ‘provide high-quality care’

Dr Yusuke Tsugawa, associate professor-in-residence of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, said: “What our findings indicate is that female and male physicians practise medicine differently, and these differences have a meaningful impact on patients’ health outcomes.

“It is important to note that female physicians provide high-quality care, and therefore, having more female physicians benefits patients from a societal point of view.

“Further research on the underlying mechanisms linking physician gender with patient outcomes, and why the benefit of receiving the treatment from female physicians is larger for female patients, has the potential to improve patient outcomes across the board.”

The researchers are unsure what is driving the effect, but say the male doctors may underestimate the severity of their female patients’ illness.

Earlier research has shown that male doctors underestimate their female patients’ pain levels, gastrointestinal and cardiovascular symptoms, and stroke risk, which could lead to delayed or incomplete care.

The team suggested that female doctors may communicate better with their female patients, making it likelier that these patients provide important information leading to better diagnoses and treatment.

Finally, female patients may be more comfortable with receiving sensitive examinations and engaging in detailed conversations with female physicians.

The new study is published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

Previous studies

Previous studies have shown that female medical students are better at basic surgical skills and gain higher scores on theoretical surgical knowledge tests.

In 2017, the University of Toronto found that patients operated upon by women are less likely to die in the month following surgery.

The risk of dying within 30 days following an operation was 12 per cent less if a woman operated. There was no significant difference in readmissions to hospital or complications.

Five years later the same team found that women are 15 per cent more liable to suffer a bad outcome, and 32 per cent more likely to die, when a man rather than a woman carries out the surgery.

Female doctors now make up around half of the workforce in Britain, and about 68 per cent of medical and dentistry students are women, but just 17 per cent of surgeons are female.

A study in February found there is still “considerable gender inequality” in surgical fields in England and Wales and that “surgery is still a specialty that struggles to recruit women”.