- Research published this week suggests that men and women have better outcomes when they are treated by a female physician.
- The study adds to a growing body of research that patients consistently do better when they are under the care of a female physician.
- Experts say male physicians should consider the findings of the study and reflect on how they might improve their own practice.
People treated by female physicians have lower rates of mortality and readmission than those treated by male physicians.
That’s according to research published today in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
In their study, researchers reported that there was a clinically significant difference in outcomes for people depending on the gender of their treating physician.
“What our findings indicate is that female and male physicians practice medicine differently, and these differences have a meaningful impact on patients’ health outcomes,” Dr. Yusuke Tsugawa, a senior author of the study and an associate professor-in-residence of medicine in the division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles, said in a press statement.
“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,” he added.
Tsugawa and his colleagues examined data from Medicare claims made between 2016 to 2019. The data included more than 458,100 female patients and more than 318,800 male patients. Roughly 31% of both the male and female patient groups were treated by a female doctor.
The researchers reported that the mortality rate for female patients when they were treated by a female doctor was 8.15% compared with 8.38% when treated by a male physician. The researchers regard this as a clinically significant…
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