Treatment from female doctors leads to lower death rates, study finds
Global News
Women have better survival rates and lower hospital readmission rates when treated by female physicians, a new study found.
Women have better survival rates and lower hospital readmission rates when treated by female physicians, a new study found.
The observational study published Tuesday in Annals of Internal Medicine found a contrast in mortality rates depending on the gender of the treating physician in the United States. Among women treated by female physicians, 8.15 per cent died within 30 days, while 8.38 per cent of those treated by male physicians met the same outcome.
The researchers found the same pattern for hospital readmission rates.
This difference may seem small, but lead author Dr. Yusuke Tsugawa, an associate professor-in-residence of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said it is “clinically meaningful.”
“If you take the ratio, it’s about a three per cent difference, so a three per cent lower mortality and readmission rate when patients were treated by female physicians compared with patients who were treated by a male physician,” he told Global News.
“And if we put this into context, for mortality, for every two 420 hospitalizations, one fewer death will occur when female physicians provide care, as opposed to when male physicians treat patients. And given that more than four million hospitalizations for medical conditions happen every year in the U.S., this difference is pretty big if you take into account the population level.”
Although the data is from the U.S., Tsugawa believes that given the underlying practice differences between male and female physicians, these are generally applicable patterns that could be observed in various countries. He added that it is possible that similar patterns can be seen in other countries, such as Canada.
“What our findings indicate is that female and male physicians practise medicine differently, and these differences have a meaningful impact on patients’ health outcomes,” he said.
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