Patients fare better with female physicians

For the study, researchers analyzed Medicare claims data on 458,108 female patients and 318,819 male patients from 2016 to 2019. Among both patient groups, around 30% were treated by female physicians.

Overall, the researchers found that all patients had lower mortality rates when treated by female physicians. The mortality rates for men and women treated by female physicians were 10.15% and 8.2%, respectively. In comparison, mortality rates for men and women treated by male physicians were 10.23% and 8.38%, respectively.

Although the difference in mortality rates for male patients "could be ruled out," the researchers said that the difference for female patients "was large and clinically meaningful." Erasing the gap between the two mortality rates could save the lives of 5,000 female patients each year, the researchers added.

The researchers also found a similar pattern when examining readmission rates, with patients treated by female physicians having lower rates.

"What our findings indicate is that female and male physicians practice medicine differently, and these differences have a meaningful impact on patients' health outcomes," said Yusuke Tsugawa, the study's senior author and an associate professor-in-residence of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Do female and male physicians practice medicine differently?

According to the researchers, there are several potential reasons for the disparities in health outcomes among patients treated by female and male physicians.

One reason is that male physicians may underestimate the severity of female patients' illnesses. Previous research has found that women are less likely to receive intensive care, but are more likely to report negative healthcare experiences, including having their symptoms and concerns dismissed or ignored.

"Our pain and our symptoms are often dismissed," said Megan Ranney, dean of the Yale School of Public Health. "It may be that women physicians are more aware of that and are more empathetic."

Female physicians may also be better at communicating with their female patients, which can lead them to provide valuable information to help with diagnoses and treatments. Female patients may also be more comfortable receiving sensitive examinations and having detailed conversations with female physicians.

"Evidence from the outpatient setting demonstrates that female physicians spend more time on the electronic health record than male counterparts and deliver higher quality care," said Lisa Rotenstein, an assistant professor and medical director at the University of California, San Francisco, and one of the study's authors. "In the surgical realm, female physicians spend longer on a surgical procedure and have lower rates of postoperative readmissions."

"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," Tsugawa said.

Commentary

According to Christopher Wallis, an assistant professor in the division of urology at University of Toronto, the study's findings are not surprising.

"Across many fields of medicine, numerous studies have demonstrated improved outcomes (whether mortality, readmissions, or others) among patients treated by women physicians," Wallis said. "These data recapitulate those findings."

Although patients should not feel the need to switch doctors, experts say that they hope male physicians will reflect on how they practice medicine and consider where they can improve.

"I would love for male physicians to look at these data seriously and interrogate their own practices," said Arghavan Salles, a clinical associate professor of medicine at Stanford University. "There is often a tendency to discount data like these because they are uncomfortable or may feel threatening. However, that kind of response will not help patients."

Separately, Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, said he would like the healthcare system to learn what female physicians are doing right when they treat female patients, and then teach all physicians to practice the same way. "We should train everyone to be better at generating trust and being worthy of trust," Jha said.

(Szabo, NBC News, 4/22; Thompson, HealthDay/U.S. News & World Report, 4/23; Hart, Forbes, 4/22; Klausner, New York Post, 4/23; Oppenheim, The Independent, 4/23; Pratt, Medical News Today, 4/22; Smith, Newsweek, 4/23; Miyawaki et al., Annals of Internal Medicine, 4/23)

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