Patients treated by female doctors have lower rates of mortality than when male physicians treat them. A new study, published in the journal Annals of International Medicine, reported that there was a significant difference in health outcomes for people depending on the gender of their treating doctor.
The researchers examined Medicare claims data from 2016 to 2019 for about 4,58,100 female and nearly 3,19,800 male patients. Of those, 1,42,500 and 97,500, or roughly 31% for both, were treated by female doctors.
The primary outcomes were 30-day mortality from the date of hospital admission and 30-day readmission from the date of discharge.
There may be several factors driving these differences, the researchers wrote. They suggest that male doctors might underestimate the severity of their female patients’ illness, prior research has noted that male doctors underestimate their female patients’ pain levels, gastrointestinal and cardiovascular symptoms, and stroke risk, which could lead to delayed or incomplete care.
On the other hand, 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.
As per the study, the mortality rate for female patients was 8.15% when treated by female physicians versus 8.38% when the physician was male, a clinically significant difference. While the difference for male patients was smaller, female physicians still had the edge with a 10.15% mortality rate compared with male doctors 10.23% rate.
“The findings indicate that patients have lower mortality and readmission rates when treated by female physicians, and the benefit of receiving treatments from female physicians is larger for female patients than for male patients,” the authors of the study wrote.
But more research is needed into how and why male and female physicians practice medicine differently and its impact on patient care, Dr Tsugawa said. “A better understanding of this topic could lead to the development of interventions that effectively improve patient care,” he said.
