Why you want a female doctor: Research shows that patients treated by women are more likely to survive

Patients should demand to be seen by a female doctor.

This is evident from research that suggests treatment by a woman can save their lives.

For every thousand patients treated, two more are expected to survive if treated by a woman, the study found.

Experts from the University of California, Los Angeles have stated this their results show that having more female physicians would “benefit patients.”

However, critics tore up the investigation into nearly 800,000 health insurance claims in the US, arguing that it was seriously flawed and proved nothing.

The US team admitted they were unsure what caused the effect.

But they noted that male doctors may underestimate the severity of their female patients’ illness.

A greater difference in mortality was seen in female patients.

Dr. Yusuke Tsugawa, senior author of the study, said: ‘What our findings indicate is that female and male doctors practice medicine differently.

“And these differences have a meaningful impact on patients’ health outcomes.

“It is important to note that female physicians provide high-quality care, and therefore having more female physicians is a societal benefit to patients.”

He added: ‘Further research into the underlying mechanisms linking physician gender to patient outcomes, and why the benefit of receiving treatment from female physicians is greater for female patients, has the potential to improve patient outcomes across to improve the whole line.’

Researchers reviewed more than 775,000 Medicare insurance claims from U.S. patients between 2016 and 2019 and recorded the number who had died within 30 days of a doctor’s visit.

They found a small but ‘significant’ difference, with a mortality rate of 8.15 percent among female patients when treated by a woman.

This rose to 8.38 percent when treated by a male doctor – a difference of about two deaths in 1,000.

Although the death rate among men was higher overall, there was a smaller difference: 10.15 percent died within 30 days of being seen by a female doctor.

In men, the rate was 10.23 percent, a difference of about one death in a thousand.

Writing in the diary Annals of Internal Medicineresearchers also said that the “pattern was similar for patient readmission rates.”

Female patients were less likely to be readmitted within 30 days if they had a female doctor.

About 15.23 percent of women with a female doctor were readmitted, compared to 16.71 percent of women with a male doctor.

The team suggested that the effect could also be due to female doctors communicating better with their female patients, ultimately leading to better diagnoses and treatment.

Likewise, female patients may feel more comfortable engaging in detailed and sensitive conversations with doctors of the same gender.

Scientists have previously found that women who have had a heart attack are more likely to die if treated by a male doctor.

Last year, Canadian researchers also found that patients treated by female surgeons for fractures, hip replacements and heart disease were almost 10 percent less likely to develop complications such as internal bleeding within 90 days of surgery compared to patients seen by a man.

However, experts today argued that the paper was purely observational and cannot prove causality.

Dr. Gavin Stewart, an expert in evidence-based research methods at the University of Newcastle, said the ‘observational research design is a major limitation to this work’.

A “lack of preregistration” – when scientists register hypotheses, methods or analyzes of a scientific study before it is conducted – also increases the “possibilities of undetected” bias.

Researchers should be wary of the study’s conclusions, “unless confirmed by further studies,” he added.

Female doctors represent around half of the UK workforce and just over two-thirds of medical and dental students are women.

But only 17 percent of surgeons are women.