Patients treated by female doctors more likely to survive than those by men: study

Research debunks popular claims

Aged patients have a lesser chance of expiring or being readmitted to health facilities when treated by female doctors rather than their male counterparts, according to a new study.

Not only does the research contradict claims that female doctors provide lower-quality care due to greater domestic responsibilities; it also points towards how preposterous the average $20,000 gender pay gap in the profession is.



Harvard University public health researchers perused three-year records of patients aged 65 and above in the US for the study. The research concluded that regardless of patients' medical condition, they were likely to be readmitted to the hospital or die within 30 days of treatment from a male physician.



The study did not delve into the reasons responsible for better treatment outcomes by female doctors. However, researchers referenced previous studies that indicated better scores on medical standardised tests, more time spent communicating with patients, and a higher tendency to use best-practices as some of the factors responsible for better treatment outcomes by female doctors.



Researchers were only able to link the outcome to the physician’s gender; they were unable to say for sure that the female physicians caused the decreased deaths. However if a direct relationship is assumed, they said “…approximately 32,000 fewer patients would die if male physicians could achieve the same outcomes as female physicians every year.”

This article originally appeared on The Verge.