Health
Female doctors are better for patients, research shows
Topline
Patients treated by female doctors fare better than those treated by male doctors, according to new research published Monday, even as the field struggles to improve women’s representation in research and among practitioners.
Research shows that female physicians are better for patient outcomes.
Key facts
Patients treated by female doctors in the US had lower death rates and lower readmission rates compared to patients treated by male doctors, according to peer-reviewed research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
The findings come after researchers from the University of Tokyo in Japan analyzed data from the medical records of more than 700,000 Medicare patients aged 65 or older who were hospitalized and treated between 2016 and 2019 to assess differences between patients treated by male and female doctors.
Just under a third of the approximately 460,000 female and 320,000 male patients included in the study were treated by female doctors, the researchers said, and there were no significant differences between the groups when it came to the key metrics for evaluating hospital care, including the length of stay. expenditure, how likely a discharge home was, management claims and the proportion of time spent on intensive evaluation.
Although both male and female patients treated by female physicians fared better than those treated by male physicians in terms of lower mortality and readmission rates, the researchers found that the difference was especially large and clinically meaningful for female patients, who are underrepresented are in medical research and have been underrepresented in medical research to date. more likely to suffer wrong diagnoses and medical errors during treatment than men.
The researchers said that there may be several reasons behind the large difference in outcomes for female patients when treated by female doctors, such as male doctors who may underestimate the severity of diseases in their female patients and female doctors who are likely to have better communication skills and have a more patient-oriented attitude. approach when it comes to female patients.
Being treated by a female doctor could also help alleviate the shame, discomfort and social and cultural taboos that can arise for female patients during sensitive examinations, the researchers said.
Important background
The finding that patients treated by female physicians do better than patients treated by male physicians has been repeatedly demonstrated propagated through research around the world. For example, studies Published last year by researchers from Sweden and Canada, it was found that people operated on by female surgeons had better outcomes and fewer problems during recovery than when male surgeons performed the operations. In the US, research has shown that women who have a heart attack also have one more chance to survive when you are treated by a female doctor. The same applies to elderly hospital patients. Although studies are usually observational and therefore cannot establish cause and effect, research has shown that female physicians tend to listen more to their patients, spend more time with their patients and are more likely to do so follow guidelines and work together with specialists. Although patients might fare better under female physicians, female physicians face a variety of issues that hinder their ability to enter and stay in the field. Female doctors are more likely to be so paid less than their male counterparts, face systemic discrimination and struggle with higher rates of burnout amid attempts to manage brutal medical schedules with other commitments.
Surprising fact
Despite decades of promise to address systemic biases against women in healthcare and research, medical research still persists consciously and consistently overlooked women and women still are underrepresented in clinical trials. This bias permeates all of medical research, even down to the laboratory level, with animals subjects like it mice And rats all predominantly male.
