A study of more than 700,000 patients has revealed that those treated by female doctors experienced lower mortality and readmission rates compared to patients treated by male doctors.
The researchers also found that the difference between female and male physicians was particularly large and clinically meaningful for female patients.
According to the authors, there may be several reasons for this notable difference in care — male physicians may underestimate illness severity among female patients.
Being treated by female physicians may be associated with more patient-cantered and effective communication with female patients; and may help alleviate embarrassment, discomfort, and sociocultural taboos during sensitive examinations and conversations.
Published in Annals of Internal Medicine, the retrospective observational study by the University of California and the University of Tokyo examined Medicare patients aged 65 or older who were hospitalised during 2016 to 2019, to determine whether the association between physician sex and hospital outcomes varied between men and women.
The primary outcomes were patients’ 30-day mortality and readmission rates, adjusted for patient and physician characteristics and hospital-level averages of exposures (effectively comparing physicians within the same hospital).
A 20% random sample of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries rendered 458,108 female and 318,819 male patients, 142,465 (31.1%) and 97,500 (30.6%) of which were treated by female physicians, respectively.
Both female and male patients had a lower patient mortality when treated by female physicians; however, the mortality rate for female patients was 8.15% when treated by female physicians vs. 8.38% when the physician was male.
And 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.
Dr Yusuke Tsugawa, the study’s senior author, said the pattern was similar for patients’ readmission rates.
“There may be several factors driving these differences: 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,” Dr Tsugawa said.
“Also, female doctors may communicate better with their female patients, making it likelier that these patients provide vital 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.
“Patient outcomes should not differ between male and female physicians if they practice medicine the same way, yet our findings indicate that female and male physicians do practice medicine differently, and these differences have a meaningful impact on patients’ health outcomes.”