Women are less likely to die if treated by female doctors: Study

A recent study shows women are less likely to die or be readmitted to the hospital when treated by a female doctor. Gender playing a role in a medical scenario might seem bizarre at first.but once you peel the layers, you understand why this might be true. Medical studentsnot being properly taught about how to deal with women’s health issues is one of the reasons.

The study, which was published on Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, examines people between the ages of 65 and older. About 8.15 per cent of women treated by female physicians died within 30 days as compared with 8.38 per cent of women when treated by male physicians.

The difference might seem small, but erasing this gap could save up to 5000 women’s lives every year.

Some experts aren’t convinced that the new study proves a physician’s gender makes a big difference, but here's what the study found.

Female doctors are more empathetic towards women and minorities: Study

The study included about 800,000 male and female patients who were hospitalised from 2016 through 2019. The gender of the doctor had no impact on the risk of death or hospital readmission of male patients. The data only showed the gap between the treatments of female patients when treated by different genders.

Though the study did not explain why women feel better when treated by other women, other studies have shown that women are less likely to experience “miscommunication, misunderstanding and bias” when treated by female doctors, said lead author of the study Dr Atsushi Miyawaki. Miyawaki is a senior assistant professor of health services research at the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Medicine.

The study is part of a growing field of research examining why women and minorities tend to receive worsemedical care than men and white patients. For example, women and minority patients are up to 30 per cent more likely to be misdiagnosed than white men.

“Our pain and our symptoms are often dismissed,” said Dr. 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.”

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Part of the problem, Miyawaki said, is that medical students get “limited training in women’s health issues.”

Dr Ronald Wyatt, a former chief science and chief medical officer at the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine, a non-profit research and advocacy group, said there is a tendency in doctors to harbour sexist stereotypes about women, regardless of age.

“The notion that women’s symptoms are more emotional or their pain is less severe or more psychological in origin”, said Wyatt.

Women seem to experience fewer of these problems when treated by other women. A study published by JAMA Surgery in 2021 showed the same results. It found that women patients developed fewer complications if their surgeon was female.

Wyatt said the country needs to take several steps to better care for women patients, including “de-biasing training” to teach doctors to overcome stereotypes.

The healthcare system also needs to increase the number of women physicians in leadership, recruit more female doctors and do a better job at retaining them, he said further.

(With inputs from agencies)